Courtship of the Grad Student
by Seigetsu Ren
Summary: Legend says an undergrad research assistantship can be heaven or hell depending on the grad student you work for. Anna is about to find out, that is, if she first manages to talk to Elsa without the aid of the lab printer. (Elsanna, modern academic laboratory AU)
1. Chapter 1

AN: This is a fun little slice-of-life Elsanna AU I'm writing that is set in a modern academic laboratory. For those of you who have read my ShizNat fanfic, _Fujino Lab_, the parody is somewhat similar, but the tone will be quite different. There will only be a couple little plot twists, while most of it is just as the title says:

**Courtship of the Grad Student**

so it'll be full of meaningless fluff and poking fun at my occupation. I do not own_ Frozen_, obviously. That said, please enjoy, and if you have time, I'd really appreciate any reviews you could leave behind.

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Chapter 1

Undergrad research assistantships were notoriously difficult to find here at the University of Arendelle, with entire lab buildings near emptied due to a deep cut in the national budget for the sciences. One would think the industry would then be more lenient in their demands for previous work experience, but the skyrocketing unemployment rate of fresh grad science majors spoke otherwise.

Taking the advice of her older friends, Anna Summers decided to hunt for a RAship despite the difficulties. She was never the type to back down, even if it meant mass emailing every faculty member of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, including Dr. Winters, whose grey hair and pale, lifeless-looking face accentuated the connotation of his surname. It was almost impossible writing an enthusiastic cover letter with his photo on her desktop, but she was Anna Summers, personality warm enough to melt the Arctic even without the help of methane and CO2.

Perhaps it was her warmth, but more likely just to stop her from spamming his inbox, Dr. Winters finally replied a month later with a single "OK" and a CC to elsa dot snow at uarendelle dot edu

So what did that mean?

Ten more emails down the drain asking when she should start, Anna decided the best way to tackle unresponsive profs was to storm their offices. Unfortunately for her, she was met by a locked door with a piece of paper taped on it saying, "On sabbatical till June 6". Great, that would be past her graduation!

Printing out the two-lettered reply from Dr. Winters, Anna went up to reception to try and convince the building manager that even if he were on sabattical, she could still talk to the mysterious person on the CC line, who judging from the matching name on the lab website, was his grad student.

"Elsa Snow?" the lady replied incredulously. What, was the lab website a decade-old and this Elsa person had long graduated? Couldn't be. Grad students were permanent fixtures to the ceilings, they _never_ graduated.

"I thought she's a _grad_ student at the Winters Lab," Anna emphasized her thoughts. The lady nodded knowingly.

"Well, yeah, if you mean to say she must still be around. But you said you wanted to _talk_ to her?"

Okay, now she could see the problem. In the field of science, the techs were usually the normal ones. The others? Well, let's just say they had a bit more _personality_. I mean, you had to have personality to torture yourself with another life's worth of education. Alright, Anna admitted she was exaggerating with the PhD thesis timeline because a select few did eventually finish, but nonetheless no understatement about torture.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, Ma'am! You know me, well you don't know me but you know me enough by now to know that I can rant on forever, so I think I can deal with it even if my grad student were a little socially-challenged...I mean distant of course, distant, not in a bad way."

The lady quirked a finely-trimmed eyebrow at her. She plastered her best grin in response.

"Umm...so may I have a key card to the labs? I swear I'm not here to free the mice."

After another long, skeptical look at her redhead all the way down to her toes, the lady held out her hand, "Driver's License please."

She fished the license out of her wallet and gave it to the lady who put a key card in her palm in return, "I will call the police if you free the mice." And when she saw the Ginger's sheepish smile, she added, "For your sake, because a horde of mad scientists would be out for your blood."

"Yeah, I think I get it, you know, the thing with mad scientists, since I'm a science major myself," Anna said while retreating, stubbing her toe on a chair on the way out. With a loud "Ow!" and face red as a tomato, she stumbled her way down the stairs to the scanner that welcomed her new card with a beep and let her into the restricted area.

The Winters Lab lay on a deserted corridor across the cold room. First things she saw and heard the moment she pushed open the door were freezers, making a neat line across the left of the room, and benches cuddled close to them.

Oddly fitting, really, considering the surname of the PI.

"Hi," a plump middle-aged woman with dark hair held behind a forest-green knitted cap stepped up to Anna, "Are you looking for somebody?"

"Oh, I'm Anna, pleased to meet you!" she held out her hand only to be met with a polite smile and a light shake of the woman's head that referred to the gloves she was wearing, "Oh, sorry! I didn't realize you were wearing gloves. I mean, of course you would be wearing gloves, nothing wrong with that, I'm...just...what am I saying? I'm the dumb new undergrad reporting here for the first time. See? Dr. Winters said OK, literally."

She held out the printed email to the woman who nodded. "Oh, I see. Well, let me just finish loading this little mini-gel here and I'll get you settled down, seeing as you will be working with us for the rest of the year," she said, turning back to her experient while still holding the friendly demeanor she had, "I'm Gerda by the way, the lab manager, so if you need anything, feel free to come to me for assistance. Across from us is Kai, the post-doc, then on the next bay is Hans, our Masters student, and his undergrad, Kristoff. He's in fourth year. Which year are you in, Anna?"

"Same!" she beamed, though clearly not at the other undergrad. Her eyes skipped past Kai's half-bald head for the slickly-gelled auburns of the grad student behind him. His gaze was a bright green so electric that they practically shocked her heart to a momentary stop, not to mention that beautiful smile he was now wearing for her. Oh God, he was smiling at her! She could faint happily and wake up in heaven now.

Until his undergrad, Christopher was it, gave her his most demeaning stare with dark marbles.

"Umm...Hi, Christopher?" she tried to sound nice. He only growled at her in return.

"It's Kristoff."

She wasn't in the best of moods either, crossing her arms and growling back. Only when Hans tugged Kristoff back and told him to "be nice" did their unfriendly staring contest end.

"Well, that was a nice introduction!" Gerda said as though nothing happened, the beautiful curvature of her lips still held upright. Wow, she was impressive. Just when Anna thought her own smile was already plastered...

"I'm terribly sorry for...for everything. And you were, I mean you still are, so nice, Gerda. It just..."

"Don't worry about it, Anna dear. Labs are more fun this way. So, should we find you a spot for your backpack?"

Gerda took off her gloves and led Anna to the right-side of the room where the temperature seemed to drop close to freezing. It was then that she realized why everybody crowded around the freezers on the opposite side - not because of the non-stop whining sounds they made, but because of the heat they gave off in an attempt to cool the insides. Seeing as things were probably going to start frosting over on this side though, Anna wondered if it would be more environmentally-friendly to just leave reagents on the benches here.

They came to a bay with one side occupied, the other side empty. By occupied, it meant that the desk and bench were occupied by inanimate, not living things, unless the streaked bacterial plates counted as such. Everything was pristinely clean, devoid of even a single speck of dust, and coloured lab tape crisscrossed atop the bench, drawing out complex bounds for every single object to be placed within. The arrangement reminded Anna of a spider web, but on second thought, the intricate art could use a prettier simile - snowflake, it was like a snowflake.

Except it was a rather threatening snowflake considering the tip boxes were taped together into a gigantic block with a big post-it on top reading, "Do NOT use and leave the empty boxes for me to stack. There are autoclaved tips in the drawer by the front entrance, walk there!" Similar post-its guarded easy access to the micropipettes on the spin rack, and an especially obnoxious-looking monster was drawn on a LB bottle, with a warning beside it saying, "The abominable snowman will kick you out the lab shall you dare sully this medium!"

By now, Anna had an idea who was the owner of this bench. Gerda nodded as though reading her thoughts, gesturing to the adjacent desk for her to sit at.

"Here's a seat for you. I'd suggest triple-lab-coating if it gets too cold. Unfortunately, the building's heating system is a little malfunctional on this side; at least this seat isn't under the air vent like Elsa's. And seeing as you will be working with her, I'll show you where she is now."

Oh great, finally time to go see her direct supervisor who was known throughout a building of weirdos as _the weirdo_. Let's hope their first meeting wouldn't end with her on the receiving end of a chucked centrifuge rotor.

In the end, it seemed her worries were unfounded.

Gerda showed her to a room at the end of the hall that had a sign saying "Tissue culture", under which a post-it added, "Flow cytometry", on top of which was an additional piece of tape reading, "Fluorescence imaging". Okay, so multi-purpose dark room it was then. Actually, the big fat piece of construction paper on the locked door was probably a more accurate description, "The Snow Queen's Domain."

"Elsa?" Gerda called when she knocked on the door, "Your new undergrad, Anna, has arrived."

Dot. Dot. Dot.

No response.

"Umm...Hi, I'm Anna. Nice to meet you," she tried to break the silence, but it remained, hanging stiffly to the air. Turning to face the lab manager, she whispered, "Are you sure she is in? Maybe she's on a washroom break..."

"I am rather certain she doesn't drink water while we're around, so no, she won't be at the washroom. And she does come in everyday. Look, the microscope is acquiring."

Anna curiously peeked at the narrow bottom slit between the door and ground that was filled completely with black until a flash of blue nearly made her heart jump to her throat, "Oh! That was not an explosion. That was the...ugh...microscope!?"

"The fluorescent scope on the green channel, yes. Pretty bright flash, isn't it? The Texas Red channel is an even more blinding lime green. In contrast, the DAPI channel is quite a subdued royal blue."

"Err...fascinating..." Anna came to the realization that she wasn't quite cut out as a nerd, yet. Interest aside, she did say she wouldn't give up on this opportunity so easily, so she grasped onto it and spoke through the door again, "Umm, Elsa? The microscope...it sounds really cool! Mind if I come in and watch?"

More silence, followed by a couple clicking sounds within the room, and then heavy silence once again.

When the screech of their lab printer sounded, Anna jumped, noticing she had been leaning on it all this time. It sat conveniently on a table beside the doorway so she had a good view of the freshly printed paper it spat out. On its second page, the printer hiccuped, and Gerda smashed its ancient massive body with two solid thuds to bring it back to working condition.

"Meet Olaf, the lab printer. It likes warm hugs."

If by hugging, Gerda meant smacking, Anna could definitely use a lesson on euphemism from her.

"Seems like Elsa wants you to take the safety courses first," Gerda continued, handing her the stack of paper that detailed the registration process, "Are you up for it?"

"Of course," she answered, though she was facing the door directly, "I look forward to working with the microscope after this is done!"

Anna decided that this was going to be one heck of a difficult research assistantship...

...but secretly her interest in the untouchable Snow Queen had piqued.

**End of Chapter 1**


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Thanks Kildren, redmustache, gagins, and the guest for your kind comments. Hope you'll all continue to enjoy reading, and if you have the time, feedback is very welcome. Thanks again!

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**Courtship of the Grad Student**

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Chapter 2

"Another one!?"

Ever since she finished her safety courses and slipped a copy of her certificates under the dark room door, Anna had been receiving these small bottles of mystery liquid on her bench every day.

What happened to the safety rule of "labelling all aliquots of lab chemicals"? Well...she supposed they weren't really chemicals by common definition, considering they were just plain saline.

The first time she received one, she asked Gerda about it, but the manager mentioned she left the lab locked and only its members had keys. When everybody else denied pulling a prank on her, even Kristoff who just looked at her like she were crazy to even think of him, she surmised these bottles could only be from one sender - her vice-boss, Elsa.

"Maybe this is a test of some sort?" the kind, charming Hans had said in a most calming tone that made her fall in love instantaneously, not that she hadn't already, "Have more confidence. You can figure this one out! I'll be right here if you need help."

Oh, how she wanted to hug him and kiss him deeply right then and there! She only managed to restrain due to her burning curiosity for Elsa's "challenge". At first she wanted to boil off the liquid on a hot plate and see what was left, but taking advice from Kristoff who plainly commented with a quirked eyebrow, "What if this were flammable and you set the whole place on fire?", she decided to evaporate it off inside the fume hood, setting it under a stream of gently-pressurized air to speed the process.

Luckily, the volume just barely covered the bottom, so by the next day she came in, she found a white film of crystals caking the glass that smelt distinctly of table salt.

"It's saline!" she had called to the locked dark room door. Once again, no answer, "Oh come on, Elsa. You can't be angry because your challenge was too easy!"

When met with yet no response, she turned, about to sulk away and ask Hans if she could work with him instead, but the moment she did so, the door cracked open and out came the cling of glass rolling across linoleum floor.

That was her second mystery bottle, which Anna found out the next day, was_ still_ saline!

"How many of these are you going to give me?" she said sarcastically into the door, the evaporated second bottle in her left, and a fresh third bottle of presumably more saline left on her bench in her right hand.

Still no response.

And this time when she turned, the door cracked open and something smacked the back of her head.

"Ow! Why are you throwing things at me?"

It was a pen.

Hmm...oh! Write down her observations, maybe?

"I saw a white powder at the bottom of the container," Anna wrote, passing it under the door. Nope! More saline hurled at her feet when she wasn't looking.

"I air-dried the solution and found white powder at the bottom of the container," second try, still unsuccessful.

"0.5ml of the solution was placed under compressed air for 15 hours to evaporate the liquid and the white powder remaining in the container after the procedure was weighed on an analytical balance. The weight of the powder, which had the quality of smell of table salt, was determined to be 4.5mg," third try, and she already asked Kai, the post-doc, for help!

"Elsa, are you a super-perfectionist or do you just hate me?" she shouted through the piece of wood, a little angry but even more intrigued. Every time she faced this door, she became more determined to break it down, not physically, but mentally - she would make Elsa acknowledge her. Yeah, she'd show the Snow Queen what she had got!

She designed a brand new experiment, streaking the saline on a LB plate and incubated it in the 37⁰C. When nothing turned up the next day, she added a sentence describing this on her report, "...this supports the hypothesis that this liquid is a 0.9%w/v sterile saline solution."

Still more saline on her bench. Gosh! Just how many of these did her supervisor have? She was so darn tempted to slam down that door else risk her hands pulling all her own hair out! Finally calming down, she sought Kai's help again, asking him if Elsa was looking for an outright HPLC, or heck, a mass spec!? He chuckled lightly, patting her shoulder, "I think she's not looking for that. She's just unhappy about the LB plate experiment."

"Really? But...that was my most brilliant idea!" She whined. Kai nodded his bald head lightly.

"It is brilliant, which is why you are officially Elsa's longest-lasting undergrad thus far. But try thinking in the context of what we do here..."

Looking for some amazing little critter in chunks of Arctic ice that was somehow supposed to infer the origin of the human immune system? Anna must admit Dr. Winters was likely one very badass scientist to spin that into a non-sci-fi-sounding proposal that wouldn't get the automatic reject from granting agencies.

Judging by the inappropriateness of her mental statements, Anna went with a more conservative choice, "Err...environmental genomics?"

"You mean wasting grant money on expensive tests done on Arctic ice?"

Anna's eyes went wide with surprise and a hint of unstoppable admiration for the post-doc's guts. Kai only laughed at her again.

"Oh Anna, you would think working in the field for a good thirty years would teach you what an undergrad thought of your project. But you are right, it's just ice, so why run expensive tests when you can streak it onto a plate and watch things grow?"

It took her a while, but the mental light bulb lighted up. Genomics! Yes, genomics! Because what were the chances of something that naturally grew on Arctic ice being happy on a plate at 37⁰C? It was like sending Santa to the equator! But even if they couldn't grow, they were still there, so their genes must be there. That was why! That was why their lab even existed!

Genius, Anna, totally genius...you just found out why your PI could still afford your grad student's stipend...what a wonderful discovery!

As such, Anna slipped a DNA extraction protocol under Elsa's door and asked, "Hey, I want to do this. Gerda said you might have the reagents...so, mind giving them to me, or if you don't have any extra, can I place an order?"

Olaf sounded again, and for the first time, the printed line was not something from a website, but Elsa's original, "Come back tomorrow. Things will be ready for you."

"You're saying I deserve a break? Seriously?"

Though as she expected no verbal response came, a proud warmth started gathering inside, making her subconsciously grin. It was strange, because she didn't even remember saying goodbye to everyone on her way out the lab, just waltzing through singing to herself, "For the first time in forever, for the first time in forever...nothing's in my way!"

No wonder right after singing that last word she slammed into a cart of plants from the botany lab down the hall.

* * *

Since this first real interaction with her grad student, Anna had been strictly communicating with her through science. Each day an icebox full of materials would be set neatly on her bench before she arrived, and she would start working through them till she obtained the results she was looking for, which she would then write up and slip under the dark room door. Sometimes these write-ups would be pushed back to her side within minutes, making her feel as though her childhood sweetheart just chose the bitchiest girl in town over her. But other times they would be accepted, and like a pleading girlfriend, she would beg for this and that for the next experiment.

Like the week before when she whined through the door, "Please, I really want this probe. The guy at the product show, who shoved a dozen chocolates in my face by the way, you should totally have been there, so where was I? Right, the guy at the product show said they make these probes with a super-safe dye instead of radioactive labels. I mean, it'll save me from cancer! Can you believe it, Elsa? Yeah...so what was my point? Please get me the probe, I promise I'll get a perfect blot with it...Hans said he would help, so pretty please?"

After three minutes of deafening silence in which Anna tried glaring through the wood with her watery gaze, Olaf finally choked out a piece of paper - confirmation of the probe order.

And then she started literally dreaming of the probe every night. Gosh, would she become Kary Mullis at this rate? Hey, she wouldn't mind a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

But maybe, just maybe even more than that, she wanted Elsa to open the door.

Of course, her conscious thought would never recognize that, so when the probe did come in, she jumped up and down thinking she was delighted because she could now do a Southern blot with Hans.

"Southern is such a beautiful name," she said while transferring the gel over to the filter paper, completely oblivious of the way Hans held her hand to make sure she didn't break the gel. Only when she realized what she said did she start blushing madly, "I...I mean...Southern as in Southern blot, not your last name...but of course your last name is beautiful too, it's all summery and warm and...oh my God, did I just say summer?"

"I do think they match, Summers and Southern, there's even alliteration."

Holy crap, did Hans just say that? Summers and Southern? She could almost picture her business card as Anna Summers-Southern now, and it made her head fume in embarrassment.

She just blurted out the first distraction she could think of, "Oh, and did you know there is a northern blot too? And a western blot? What am I talking about, of course you know, you're the grad student here. A-ha-ha...biologists sense of humour, right? Bet you didn't know this one: which CD has to have Rap?"

His bright, handsome limes stared deeply into her teals, "Actually, I know this. CD36, right?"

"Oh my God, you knew?"

"We think alike, don't we? I searched up that paper just to learn the nerdy biologist joke, too bad nobody gets it and it isn't even funny anymore when you have to explain that CD36 is a cell surface marker important in fatty acid transport, and that it may be down-regulated when signal transduction protein Rap1 is deficient."

And she once thought she was crazy talking to beautiful microscope pictures on the halls, like that one with the poor little erythrocyte about to get engulfed by a giant macrophage. She'd be unable to resist pointing at the false-red cell, muttering, "Hang in there, RBC!"

When she told her story, Hans just laughed, "Hey, I _love_ crazy!"

At that moment, she immediately thought: soulmate.

"I'm thinking of something crazier," Hans continued, and this resonance came deep within her as she replied.

"I think I know what is this crazier thing."

"Well, would you say yes then? Dinner. My treat."

"Umm...yeah, after I finish up."

A date! A date! There was that one more experiment she wanted to do before she left, but should she just say "to heck with it" and go home, grab a nice dress before meeting up with Hans? As though reading her, he just smiled.

"No pressure, Anna. I think I'll drop off my stuff at my apartment first. Here is my number - give me a call when you're done so I can pick you up."

And with a wave, he was gone, his number written on her glove.

Oh, how she wished she wasn't wearing one and his pen strokes would remain on her bare hand for days...

By now, she was leaning towards abandoning the last experiment, but just when she was dumping out the ice at the sink, something caught her eye.

A thin thread of white gold, lying in chunks of the melting translucent cubes.

She picked it out and stared at it, turning it over and over between her fingers so the slight curl rotated like a propeller blade. It blurred into the background, circular streaks shining under the light.

_Elsa is blonde? _

Was it simple curiosity, or something more? She didn't know, but the moment a million images of her imagined Elsa flashed through her mind, she found herself unable to leave.

She would break that door.

No matter what, she would break it one day.

Refilling her icebox, she grabbed the next set of reagents and started to work.

* * *

Lab work could be excruciatingly repetitive, results never consistent, always failing on the darned n=3 to leave you with a p value just sitting above 0.05.

But after going at it for long enough, you would get gut feelings that this one last trial would work, and adrenaline would pump through your veins as you performed it, knowing it would lead to the prettiest figure on your manuscript.

And when doing just that, you would completely forget the time. It could be two in the morning and you'd think the sky was awake, so you were awake.

That was what was happening to Anna. She would later bang her head on the wall once she realized what she had forgotten, but at the moment, she could just think of the beauty of what she was seeing, and the smile she _knew_ would light up Elsa's face when she saw this.

_She would understand._

_And she would love it._

On her way to the dark room, heart pounding and paper with the latest results shaking in her hand, it all shattered.

A shrill alarm sounded urgently, chasing her heart beat, warning her to leave as an emergency had occurred.

Everything thrown out her mind, she pounded on the dark room door.

"Elsa? Elsa can you hear me? There's an alarm. I don't know what is it but you have to come out!"

No response. A horribly sick feeling set in her stomach as she imagined this room engulfed by flames, the silhouette of an unknown figure trapped within, blonde cascades charred to ashes. It made her cry, made her voice harsh as she shouted more frantically with heavier thuds against the wood, "Elsa, answer me! I don't know why you always shut me out but I've had enough of it - I'm not leaving without you! If you don't come out, I'll kick this door flying into the microscope, you hear me!?"

It was the first time she heard the weak, pleading voice in the darkness.

"Please. Leave without me."

"What the hell is wrong with you? If there's a fire coming, you're gonna die! How do you suppose I can live on knowing I just left you here to burn to your death, you Idiot!?"

"Then just go away!"

The clear voice now thick with emotions screamed. Anna was caught in shock as the girl within the walls finally broke the silence with a gentler tone, "Please. If you go ahead, I promise I'll make it to safety too."

"Alright. Fine. But you have to come out after I leave."

It was the worst. Each step away from the lab was the worst feeling ever.

And the girl still remaining within felt all of it.

That was why she hated people. She hated feeling. She didn't want to feel, because when she did, it would all come back to her.

Elsa bit her lip, chiding herself for why she couldn't just scream at Anna for being the real idiot earlier. Once she heard the steps fade, she finally stepped out into the empty lab, made her way to the fume hood, and shut the sash.

The alarm stopped.

It was that simple. Only undergrads would freak out from an airflow alarm - everyone else had heard it enough times to know it was no emergency.

But when the onslaught of Anna's concern ripped through her senses, Elsa couldn't get herself to say such a simple truth. Why, after all the frustration and disappointment she kept inflicting, the undergrad could still retain such _hope_ that they would one day connect with each other?

It was ridiculous. She didn't get it. She could feel people but she could never understand them, even more so Anna.

Her hand shook as it remained on the sash, icy blues narrowed to slits while she fought back tears from the secret nobody could comprehend.

That was the first time Anna ever saw her grad student, when her worry overwhelmed her, prompting her to return to the lab to observe this scene.

It left her entirely puzzled, but more so than she could ever imagine...

...she wanted to eventually stand by her side.

**End of Chapter 2**


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Thanks ZoeNightshade2214, Kildren, blind-saint, redmustache, Peace Sign Freak and the guests for your kind comments. Yes, last chapter revealed that Elsa can feel other's emotions. This will be expanded upon in later chapters. Thanks for reading and if you have time, any feedback you leave behind would be greatly appreciated.

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**Courtship of the Grad Student**

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Chapter 3

Anna faced the dark room door, yesterday's results in hand. She knocked.

"Umm...Elsa? About yesterday..."

No answer, not that she expected one.

Her memory replayed itself, the figure in the dark, hair blonde as she had imagined, but even paler, cascading down long, slim nape to a small back bent over the fume hood sash. She saw the hand clutch metal, making the attached glass plane shudder like a blown leaf. Under the fluorescence, the woman she was watching was white, the background black; she shone, but in a subdued way, the snowy pinnacle of a mountain mankind had never set foot on, with frail beauty seemingly so fragile it was untouchable.

Anna was captured, but she dared not step forward.

Whatever raged a tempest in those clearest blues barely peeking out drawn lashes was out of her reach. She wanted to know, wanted to help, but a certain desolation kept her away.

So she left.

But like she always told herself, Anna Summers_ never_ backed away.

She just needed a plan. First, she needed to get more personal with her supervisor...like speaking to her, or rather, speaking to her properly.

But the silent treatment had returned. She supposed yesterday was just a lucky coincidence.

Okay, maybe she had to start with professional communication first. Personal could come after that.

"So...ugh...yesterday the experiment went great! Beautiful! Like, nothing as clean as this! Remember I told you I was transforming _E. coli_ with fragments of the DNA I isolated? The activity screen showed a good number of hits. Totally cool! And the blot for confirming the copy number of the last sample's top hit came back with the prettiest bands ever."

Still no response.

Unlike before, Anna couldn't stop thinking, "why?"

"Am I rambling on too much?"

"Of course I am. What the hell, I could've just shown you the results, right?"

She slipped the paper halfway under the door, watching it, waiting for their only interaction to occur.

But it didn't. It remained there, half-in, half-out.

"Anna?" A gentle voice called from behind, snapping her attention away. She turned to find Hans standing there, watching her crouched form with a smile. He offered a large hand to help her stand.

"Hans," she said, finally remembering the other thing that happened yesterday, "I'm...I'm really sorry for not calling you last night. The experiment just went on longer than I'd expected, and I totally didn't notice the time, so by the end it was already too late and I was afraid I would wake you up, so...I'm really, really sorry, I swear."

"Hey, hey," he interrupted her, "I get it. I totally get it. No worries, apology accepted."

"Thank you," she replied, "Thanks a lot. I...I really appreciate your kindness. I mean, kindness isn't something you can take for granted, you know?"

She didn't know what she was saying, even she herself found those words bitter. But she couldn't refrain from taking just one last look at the paper under the door, still there, unaccepted. If Elsa didn't want anything to do with her, why couldn't she just shove the page all the way out again, reject her once and for all!?

"You mean Elsa?" Hans broke through her thoughts. She gasped. He just patted her shoulder comfortingly, "Sorry for intruding, but you know, I got the idea that we think alike, so I thought maybe that was what was troubling you, and I wanted to help."

She accepted the small warmth from their contact, lingering under his touch, "Am I just...that useless? I don't think it's me, you know...Elsa being distant and all, but I still can't stop wondering maybe, maybe if I try a little harder or something, she would open up."

"I'm sure she would, just not now. As for you, you've tried hard enough. You know, we all want Elsa to open up, but at the same time, we also want you to feel welcomed here. We appreciate the things you did, no matter if it's your work or reaching out to Elsa. You are great, Anna. Don't ever think you are anything less."

Hans always had that infectious personality, his compassion, his encouraging outlook on the bleakest situations. A small part of Anna could probably guess Hans and she were not so alike, but he had the ability and the wish to connect despite it all. He made himself seem like her so his empathy could reach her. That was the attractiveness of his kindness, it was what made her fall deeper in love.

If only Elsa could be a little more like him.

"Oh, Hans, Anna, are you two looking for Elsa?" someone questioned. It was Gerda, who happened to have walked by and saw them both standing in front of the dark room.

"Is she not around?" Hans caught the undertone of the older woman's statement.

She nodded, "She sent me an email saying she would be down at the animal facility doing mouse experiments today; she even asked me to help Anna out if she needed anything."

Anna didn't know how she felt about this. If she must explain, it felt like her intestines were tied in a jumble of knots, relief that Elsa still remembered her, but anxious that the latter didn't even want to face her anymore. What did she do wrong? Well, she was idiotic to think an airflow alarm would kill them both and had even threatened to break the 250k fluorescent scope, but even the most socially-inept shut-in could tell she was just trying to care.

"Anna, an animal experiment is a good sign nine times out of ten. You'd think the ethics committee wouldn't approve just any poorly-designed procedure, and PIs don't dump grant money into feeding mice unless it sounds like a feasible manuscript endpoint. Elsa is probably close to writing, and maybe you'll even get a second authorship, who knows?"

She tried to return Hans' grin, but truth be told, she could care less about an authorship. Sure, that was probably the reason she tried to work here to begin with, but somewhere down the line, the purpose had shifted. She was really starting to like what she did, and it seemed only Elsa could understand.

"You said you wanted to learn how to use the microscope?" Hans continued, "I can show you now that the room isn't locked."

She glanced at the door again, the solid barrier that separated her from the mysteries behind it. She shook her head lightly.

"Nah, how about you show me what you're working on? I've been curious for a while already."

"Sure thing! And we can discuss your project too if you like. This time I'm taking you out for lunch."

"Sounds great!"

She turned and walked away, leaving the dark room shut as it was.

It wouldn't be the same if the blonde girl wasn't the one to invite her in.

* * *

It was a good week before Elsa finished her animal experiments and returned to sulking in her dark room in the lab.

Her terror from that night the airflow alarm sounded still hadn't eased.

It was not the first time she ran away from the lab. Of course, she didn't just do animal experiments because she wanted to run away - she had all the protocols pre-approved - she just chose to work on them whenever she couldn't stand the company of another human being within a ten meters radius, even if there were a door blocking any direct contact.

Watching mice dying by her hands was bad, but they were better than humans - at least she gave them anaesthesia and they rested on heating pads; they just sunk into a dream from which they would never wake up. She hoped they didn't suffer. Right, she could cling onto that hope. Humans, on the other hand, gave her no benefit of doubt.

Humans were so downright ugly. Greed and lust and unreasonable jealousy when those were not met. Anger and frustration and even hate when others thwarted their malicious plans. It was all sickening.

But she could stand all that. Ugly, yes, but she could ignore them, bring in her narcissistic side and claim she was at least better.

What she couldn't stand was love.

Because nothing was forever, so when love moved onto pain and suffering and devastation, but it still remained, clinging onto the background in desperately thin threads, she would be torn.

She didn't want to be torn again. More so, she didn't want to feel a loved one be torn inside out again.

For this, she avoided people. She'd rather freeze in isolation - at least she was free.

She recalled her undergrad career, spent almost entirely at home studying aside from taking the mandatory exams on campus. The first year lab courses were horrifying, but she managed to come in last minute so she would be working alone in an unoccupied corner, then finishing up as quickly as possible to leave in an hour while the rest of the students were still toiling away on an experiment scheduled for three.

It was third year when she entered the Winters Lab. Her exact request was that she borrowed a quiet lab space for completing her mandatory lab requirements for her degree. It was a rare request, but granted nonetheless by her Dean only because she was the top student by far her faculty had ever seen. He saw her potential as a researcher, and perhaps he also saw Brad Winters as the only PI who could realize the potential.

Brad Winters could probably use a nickname of Bland Winters - he was bland as the Arctic ice he studied. Cold, yet oddly majestic in his calm, Elsa finally found solace in working for him.

He gave her everything she needed for research, the reagents, the equipment, and most importantly the quiet space she needed. He was a jaded full professor after all, built up a reputation that would allow his survival even in the economic downturn - he neither cared nor completely ignored Elsa's work, he was just there as an ATM and signature-provider. When she published her first paper in PNAS as a fourth-year, he left a bottle of champagne outside her door. That was all.

But even the champagne made her uncomfortable. Touching the slightly moist bottle neck where his palm must've left a very thin sheen of sweat, she collapsed.

The completely platonic pride of a mentor for his student's achievements - even that was enough to scare her. What if she failed to continue meeting his expectations? What would his disappointment feel like?

That was the first time she ran away. A day later, Brad sent her an email saying he'd be away for a conference in Hawaii. She returned to the lab, guilt-ridden, because she knew there wasn't even a related conference in Hawaii for that entire month.

Elsa was glad when Hans Southern joined the lab. The charismatic master's student actively sought Brad's attention. But Brad, jaded as he was, easily saw through Hans' true worth as a grad student - as a leader. He brought in the hardworking but painfully simple Kristoff Bjorgman into the lab as Hans' undergrad, and that changed everything once again.

Kristoff was the first one who tried to befriend her. Not that she thought Kai and Gerda were unfriendly, but they probably saw from Brad's precedent it was better to leave the Snow Queen alone. Kristoff, on the other hand, was just too nice.

He was scared of her, sure she knew - she could feel his fear before he even stopped in front of her door. Who wouldn't be, after hearing myths of the lab hermit haunting the building? Despite this, night after night, he would leave a box of water and energy bars behind, perhaps worried she'd starve to death. When she left them there each time with a note saying "No eating or drinking in the lab", he stopped, but would still drop by in-person once in a while, leaving only when she flashed the bright Texas Red channel as a sign she was still alive.

And just like Anna, the night he was working late, the airflow alarm sounded and he panicked, slamming Elsa's door.

"You've got to leave!" He shouted.

Why did he even have to care? From the snippets of conversation she caught once in a while from the others speaking outside, Kristoff was pretty much a loner, but to find comfort in befriending a door? Was he insane?

"It's the fume hood sash. Just close it!" She shouted back.

He did. The alarm stopped. And the next day, Elsa ran away.

When she came back, he never stopped by her door again.

If she had said the same thing to Anna, would all of this not happen? Would she not be so afraid?

But why hadn't she said the same thing, damn it!?

"Elsa?" the familiar voice sounded outside again, "Are you back?"

She nodded, not that Anna could see her. Her body moved without her consent, stepping towards the door, hand lifting up to trace the paint on the wood.

"Umm...welcome back," the voice continued. There was a pause when the shadow outside shifted until something blocked half the light streaming through the gap on the floor.

Anna sat down. Whatever this was going to be about, it wouldn't be short.

"I went out with Hans for lunch today at Pascal's Pizza. It was really yummy."

"And then Kristoff glared at me for dating his grad student. You think he's jealous? Maybe he has a secret crush on Hans...but I thought he was in love with the reindeer at the local zoo. What was its name again? Sven! Yeah, to remember the name of a reindeer...he's definitely in love."

"So you must be wondering why I'm telling you all this. Well, actually, I've been thinking...I want to know more about you."

"But it's rude for me to just ask, right? You're sorta my vice-boss, so what right do I have to ask? But if I first tell you about myself, then we'd become friends, and you can tell me about yourself some day."

"I know you're real nice, Elsa. I know that's who you are."

"Because who would spend so much time teaching an idiot undergrad like me?"

"Seemed like all you were doing was throwing things at me, but hey, couldn't stop thanking you when I aced my lab book check for Micro 420. I always failed those before."

"So when you were gone..."

Elsa felt an overpowering sensation. Without looking, she knew Anna's hand had reached through the gap and clawed desperately at the linoleum an inch in front of her.

"...I missed you."

_I don't know why, but I missed you._

_Your saline and pens and ice boxes of probes and antibodies and the thin piece of your hair accidentally mingled within._

_You were silent, but you were always there, watching me._

_Would you please keep watching?_

Elsa knew then that the door could no longer keep her safe from this girl called Anna, this girl she hadn't even seen once.

But she still clung onto it, because it was all she had, all these years.

She leaned onto the hard plank and slid down, sitting there.

Silence.

"Elsa?"

"Hmm?"

Anna was almost shocked to hear the slight vibration of sound on the door. Sliding her hand to the side, she touched coarse fabric - that of a lab coat.

She smiled.

Oh, the bubbles floating up her core, so warm and airy...

"You think you can show me how to use the microscope?"

The lab coat slipped away, but it was quickly replaced by something else, something she couldn't touch, but something even more.

Coloured lights danced on the ground, making her giggle.

"You sure it's okay to break the filter cubes turret on a 250k microscope?"

Elsa grinned as she sat down again, watching the rainbow flash while the turret spun round and round.

_I didn't break the turret, Silly. I just modified it._

For the first time in forever, she was not alone.

**End of Chapter 3**


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Thanks Hush Puppy, Asha5267, Supremacy of Chaos, Peace Sign Freak, Lilium7904, el-sana, hMSC (is that human mesenchymal stem cell by the way, or am I just being overly nerdy?), Nayal, and the guest for their kind comments. For those who left signed reviews, I've answered them individually through PM, but if you prefer that I just answer in the author's notes instead, please let me know. I've put up a poll on my profile for this, but whatever works for you is good enough for me (smiles). A big thanks for reading and reviewing and all the favourites and follows once again: you're all really, really wonderful! With that...

Edit: After reading through a couple reviews, it totally dawned on me how strong a resemblance this has to the cake fic. Because it's too awesome, I swear, I'm utterly corrupted! So yeah, if you haven't read it yet, go search it up and read it _now_! I suppose the chocolate bar in this chapter is totally a hat tip to forkanna, the wonderful author. But rest assured this story will have no food smex. I can't write something so hot even if I tried.

* * *

**Courtship of the Grad Student**

* * *

Chapter 4

Five people crowded around the webcam on Elsa's bench: Gerda, Kai, Hans, Kristoff, and Anna. If you squinted hard enough, Olaf the printer, Marshmallow, the nickname everybody gave for the fluffy-looking LB monster, and a picture on Kristoff's desk of the local reindeer, Sven, could be spotted in the background as well. All in all, this was the complete line-up for the Winters Lab, well, except Elsa herself of course.

On the other end of this Skype conversation was Dr. Bland Brad Winters, on sabbatical somewhere warm and cozy while they were suffering from relentless autumn rain here in Arendelle. This was apparently the first lab meeting of sorts since Dr. Winters took off, thus needless to say, it was running super-late due to the myriad of matters they must discuss.

Onto the third hour of this meeting, all their soft bottoms near bleeding from sitting on hard metal stools, most of them were dreaming of the plush made-for-boss chairs next door when Brad finally brought up the topic of...

"So who is the girl on the far right?"

Oh, who would've thought he'd finally notice a new member to his lab?

"Hi, I'm Anna. You know, the undergrad who emailed you thirty-seven times before you replied saying OK, I can work in your lab?"

"Oh, did I say that?"

Well, duh you did. Anna had that two-worded email as proof.

"She's doing a good job under Elsa's guidance," Gerda helped ease the awkward atmosphere made even more awkward because they were staring at each other through Skype. Anna smiled, hoping it wouldn't get pixelated into a smirk.

"Oh, really? That is good to hear. Speaking of which, we're up next for the building colloquium. Day after tomorrow, 2pm, usual place."

By the collective gasp, it was rather obvious attention had been abruptly switched over to the new topic. Anna didn't know whether to laugh or cry from her own invisibility - apparently, she didn't need a Harry Potter cloak to accomplish this.

"You aren't the only one," Kristoff muttered as though reading her thoughts. Why, of course the undergrads were forgotten when everybody contemplated an excuse to turn down the obvious demand for a presenter. Hans, whose face actually twitched, tried unsuccessfully to clear his voice and speak, but just managed croaking instead.

"I have a committee meeting that day...?"

"Oh, yes, that's right. I will be on Skype, I promise."

Hans couldn't hold back his deep sigh of relief.

"I presented in the last colloquium," Gerda answered. When Brad nodded, she brushed off the sweat from her forehead.

"I am really busy writing up the Genome Arendelle grant due the day after," Kai blurted out the most logical reason he could think of. Luckily, Brad seemed to have bought it.

"Tell Elsa to present then."

"Elsa!?" Anna exclaimed in utmost surprise. So sudden was her outburst that everybody was looking at her, including Brad whose eyebrows were lifted so high they could see it on the webcam.

"Is there a problem with that? Or would you like to present instead?"

"Oh, no, no, no, no. Definitely not me. Elsa's great. Elsa's awesome. You can't imagine how much I'm looking forward to seeing her at the lectern."

"Good, so next on the agenda..."

* * *

It had been two weeks since Anna started "dating" with Hans, if their little lunch dates to either the pantry or Pascal's Pizza across the street could be considered as such. When Kristoff gave her a sarcastic look about how she could even consider this a real relationship, she would complain saying they also went out for coffee at the Starbucks ten minutes away instead of the one next door, so that must count as something.

"That's because the one next door doesn't accept your coupons," Kristoff muttered sarcastically to no avail.

But for the past three days, Hans had declined her invitations. "Sorry, Anna, I would really love to join you, but my committee meeting is coming up and I don't have all that much to present even though I'm trying to convince them to let me switch to a PhD program, so I really have to get some results down no matter how evasive they seem."

Oh, how her heart hurt when she saw anxiety first etch itself in deep creases on his handsome face! She had tried talking to Kristoff about it, her new lunch partner, but the latter just scowled.

"Look, it's his problem for not working hard enough," the blond snapped.

"How can you say that about your grad student? You know he worked hard! But things in science aren't always that easy, right?"

"Then maybe it's his lack of ability? Maybe he isn't suited to be a scientist after all?"

"Kristoff! How can you be so inconsiderate?"

He shrugged, dark browns staring straight into her teals. After working here for around a month, she knew Kristoff wasn't trying to be obnoxious, he never was, but he was honest to the bone and seemed like he communicated more with boulders than humans on a regular basis. She knew he meant well, but sometimes it was hard taking his naked truths straight in the face.

So the day after when Kristoff asked if she wanted to come with him to the poster session in the Biosciences Building where they were serving free pizza, she politely turned him down. But after that when she unwrapped her sandwich in the pantry, she couldn't quite find the appetite for it.

It had been a while since she had eaten alone, actually - since she first joined the Winters Lab. Before that, she had always been by herself, absorbed in her studies just as her strict parents had taught her. Moving away from home for college gave her more opportunity to interact, but being the weird nerd she was, nothing much changed.

Or so it seemed, but now, she knew something had in fact _evolved_ within her.

Dumping the whole sandwich back into the fridge, she rose and made her way back to the lab. No, talking to electron micrographs or scooting around clean linoleum in the lab cart didn't seem all too appealing at the moment, so she sought out her other beloved activity - talking to a door.

"Hey Elsa, how is it going? I heard you have a presentation coming up?"

A hum sounded inside. This was Anna's latest achievement coaxing Elsa into communicating with her - instead of complete silence, she would receive a myriad of acknowledging sounds. If not for the time she saw the blonde in-person during the airflow alarm incident, she would've thought her grad student was a singing robot! Well, she supposed such a hypothesis still couldn't be ruled out. For all she knew, Elsa could very well be the most advanced android of the current age.

"So, do you like chocolate?" she continued, "Didn't have much of an appetite for anything today, but chocolate is another story..."

Anna paused to munch down on the chocolate bar she sneaked into the lab, then a super-interesting idea came to her, leaving her heart pounding.

"Want some? I know eating in the lab is sorta against the rules, but it'd be so nice if you could share it with me."

With some struggle, she managed to squish the half-eaten bar past the barricade. Surprised by the rustling sound as the wrapper scraped the bottom of the door, Elsa turned to stare at the newfound object in surprise.

When she unwrapped the remaining portion of the bar only to find a very clear bite mark separating it from its other half, she flushed.

"Like it?" Anna's voice sounded through the door again, laced with hopeful anticipation that only one like Elsa could feel. The blonde tried to clear her thoughts: this meant nothing, this meant nothing, this meant nothing...just a friendly thing for an undergrad to do, you know, in thanks for your bossing her around for the entire month since she had joined the group.

Totally convincing.

"So?" Anna whined again. Oh god, the feeling of her expectation was starting to overwhelm Elsa, and all she could do was focus on bringing the chocolate bar to her mouth.

Except the closer it came, the clearer she could make out glistening saliva remaining on the bite.

_What am I thinking!?_ Elsa screamed in her mind as she shoved the bar into her mouth and nearly choked on it in the process. She swore if Anna saw her now, the younger girl would be rolling on the ground laughing - her face was so hot she knew it was probably redder than the top band of a pride flag!

She crunched up the wrapper and kicked it back outside with a thud on wood.

"Hahaha!" Anna laughed anyway, somehow able to guess her predicament without even seeing her, "I'll take that as a yes? You loved it, didn't you? Didn't you?"

Elsa turned around and flopped back as hard as she could on her chair, making sure the spring made a loud enough squeak to shut Anna up. She then proceeded to turn on the biosafety cabinet so its fan drowned out the younger's giggles.

"Hey, I'll get us a drink. The chocolate's kinda sticking to my throat."

Elsa rolled her eyes, completely forgetting that Anna couldn't see it. No matter, she got the message anyway, waltzing off still laughing heartily at the elder's expense.

When she came back, Elsa expected her undergrad would bring her a bottle of water and continue coaxing her to come out, enticing since her throat was feeling icky from chocolate mucus as well but certainly not going to work because heck, she was obsessed with her door so her life practically depended on it. In the end, she was wrong, as Anna slipped a ball of saran wrap into her room instead.

"Huh?" Elsa uttered in question. Anna knowingly nodded.

"Just unwrap it."

The blonde did as she was told only to see a piece of ice resting on it...a piece of ice in a shape resembling a heart.

Silence...

"Err...did you eat it yet?"

"You don't want it?"

"Shit, did it melt? It's supposed to be a piece of ice, by the way, not my spit, because eww...that'd be gross."

"I mean I didn't give you my half-eaten chocolate bar because I wanted you to taste my spit! ...well...I sorta did...but I swear, it just occurred to me that it'd be so funny seeing you flustered over an indirect kiss even if I can't exactly see you..._what in the world am I saying!?_"

How could she flush while talking to a door, Anna would never understand.

"Err...forget what I just said. Please! What I meant was, that was a piece of ice, before it melted...or maybe it didn't...but anyway, it's clean, from the pantry, not the mouldy ice machine we use to fill our boxes."

So it wasn't a heart before it melted. Elsa tried to be glad that was the case, but disappointment seeped in instead.

Still, she popped the piece of ice into her mouth and relished in the coolness spreading throughout, down her throat and beyond.

"I ate it, Anna."

"What? Sorry?"

"I ate it."

Only then did Anna realize Elsa was talking to her.

Holy shit, Elsa the Snow Queen was talking to her! Not yelling at her to go away, but actually...talking!

"Did you like it?" She eagerly tried to squeeze more words out of this conversation, but feeling that powerful hope from the younger made Elsa back out again.

She didn't know how much courage it took for her to speak last time. Now, she just couldn't muster it again.

"Uhn..." she uttered instead. Anna couldn't help but feel a little let down, but the feeling quickly faded with renewed excitement filling the void.

Everything had to have a start.

This was the start.

* * *

But the next few days, Anna had little time to continue her quest.

"Sorry, Elsa, Hans needs a little help on preparing for his committee meeting. He's missing some experiments, and since I've been doing similar stuff anyway, I thought he could use some of my help."

_Why do you need to apologize, Anna? It's not like you did anything bad..._Elsa thought to herself. Of course she couldn't say any of that aloud, especially when she could feel Anna's anxiety creep into her room like black shadows slithering on the walls. She groaned, but the feeling only worsened as the undergrad obviously mistook it for Elsa's disapproval.

"Please? I beg you, can you let me help him for the next three days? Just the next three days? I know you're preparing for the colloquium too, but you are so smart and everything that you probably have enough data to write your thesis already. Not that I'm trying to shy away from my responsibility on our project, you know. I love our project. And you have no idea how much I'm looking forward to seeing you speak...I practically dream of it every night. Oh God, I'm just ranting away again, am I? So what's my point? No point. I just want to help Hans, but there is nothing more to it, I swear."

_Why do you need my approval anyway? And there is nothing more to it? You don't need to make a disclaimer here when previously you had pretty much drowned me with stories from your dates, OK?_

_Fine, coffee and froyo dates...not that I've done either._

"Yes?"

"Uhn."

Anna slammed herself on the door in a known-to-fail attempt to hug the blonde, "You're awesome, Elsa..._Owww_!"

* * *

So the dark room was ominously silent for the days leading up to the colloquium, with Elsa reciting her presentation for the hundredth time not because she was particularly nervous, but she was so bent on making Hans' committee meeting talk sound like crap in comparison.

_Even if he transfers, I wish he'd fail comps..._For the first time in forever Elsa cursed the innocent.

Not that she ever considered Hans as such, but his current behaviour didn't show any evidence of malice, so her scientifically-inclined mind could only come up with such a conclusion.

She really had got to wonder what on Earth did Anna like about this jackass though. No evidence of evil didn't make him a good guy. Maybe it was obvious to her, but Hans just felt like a dejected puppy with illusions of achieving alpha-male grandeur..._all the time_!

_Calm down, Elsa. The fight is today and I'm winning it_ - she recited in her mind. Knowing everyone would be at the dessert potluck preceding her talk, except Hans who was at his committee meeting, she took a deep breath, opened the door, and started walking to the seminar room.

* * *

Meanwhile, Anna was nervously chewing on a double fudge brownie.

"How many of those did you stuff into your mouth, like seriously?" Kristoff asked with a bored side-glance.

"Gershhht...jurwenn..."

"No, I totally don't know what you just said."

Anna held up seven fingers.

"That's not my point. You should first swallow your food."

She did, after nearly killing herself by ripping her esophagus. When the ball of food had safely squished through, she finally said, "Totally your fault for talking to me when you saw me with seven brownies in my face!"

"Nobody told you to take seven at once to begin with. What, are you a starving child from the Great Famine of 1845?"

"Do I look like one?"

"Right, you can probably lose some weight."

For that, he received a girly punch to his arm.

"So you nervous about something?"

"Well...Hans...you know, how he's doing now..."

"Really?" Kristoff cocked an eyebrow, "All I heard you talking about the past few days is Elsa's colloquium."

"Not so!"

"Yes so."

"Nuh-uh."

"Did your mental capacity just drop down to the level of a first-grader?"

"Shut up! You know you are excited about Elsa's talk too," she said, blushing. Kristoff cocked his other eyebrow. Seriously, how dense can this redhead be?

"Whatever you say, Anna. If you don't finish that piece of cake on your plate the next minute, we'll be late."

"Craaaaaaaaap!" She exclaimed, shoving it down to leave cream all over her mouth. When her cell vibrated with a text, she nearly choked, but managed to fish out the device with her remaining hand that wasn't holding food and stared at the message now on the screen.

_Just done the meeting. Not feeling great. Can you come? Usual coffee place._

It was Hans.

**End of Chapter 4**

_AN - a big thanks to Peace Sign Freak for inspiring the heart-shaped ice cube idea. You're awesome!_


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Thanks Plucie, lesbinope, Hush Puppy, hMSC (admittedly, my brain is probably infested with images from the cake fic, which might've had a hand in what I wrote. Of course, it's nowhere near as good as _the_ cake fic, so everybody should go read it, _now_!), GuesT (don't worry, anything other than flames make me really, really happy), Nayal, Supremacy of Chaos, Asha5267, 23deecy, Peace Sign Freak, and the guests for their kind reviews. I'm still running the poll on my profile regarding whether you'd like me to reply your reviews here in the author's notes or through PM, so vote if you have a particular preference. For now, I'll be replying those who left signed reviews through PM to keep the notes short. So, let's get going with this!

* * *

**Courtship of the Grad Student**

* * *

Chapter 5

Choking on the same piece of cake twice was not the smartest thing to do, but that was Anna's predicament when she caught sight of Kristoff peering over her shoulder to look at the text message.

"Look, that's just rude of him to ask you to join some pity party when he knows you want to go to Elsa's colloquium."

After she managed to gobble down the oversized bite, she answered, "And it's rude of you to look over my shoulder at my personal messages!"

"Hey, I'm just trying to make sure my gullible friend doesn't get kidnapped, okay?"

"I'm not gullible! And I'm willingly going to see Hans. That's not called kidnapping!"

She said it. Now she couldn't turn back.

"You sure?" Kristoff looked at her with concerned eyes. What was he trying to get at, sheesh!? She knew what she was doing.

Elsa didn't really need her, but Hans did, so...

"You have no obligations to him, Anna."

"I know!"

But neither did she have obligations to Elsa, as much as she might've liked to.

"Whatever, just come back early. Elsa's up third for the twenty-minute talks, so you might catch it if you're quick."

She nodded and ran. Damn it all, the skies were a whirling grey with hints of upcoming rain, the wind slicing through her left chills down her bones. For once, she wished "their Starbucks" was the one next door, not the one left of the intersection uphill.

Shoving the door open, the loud chime drew everybody's attention. Luckily, it was a cold day and the customers longed for their coffee, so before the rush of heated air could fade from her body, they had already turned back to their hot, caffeinated drinks.

"Hey," Hans gestured from a corner. She quickly stepped forward, careful she didn't bump into cups of boiling liquid on her way there. He had already reserved her a seat, one she took with no hesitation, plopping down without even taking off her jacket first.

"Sup?" She said as cheerfully as she could. Hans smiled politely, but looked no less dejected from before.

"Didn't know you had a habit of cutting your words short, Anna."

Her jaw fell and it took a moment for her to collect them, "Oh, yeah, have been listening to too much rap lately. Sup, Yo! Chillax'in dude?"

"Doesn't sound like rap to me," he chuckled. She tried to join in, but noticed her laughter sounded somewhat artificial.

Oh, screw it. As long as he thought it was funny and didn't catch the drift that she was rather short on time. Now that wouldn't be too nice of her, seeing as they were supposedly dating...or at least she considered their relationship as such...maybe.

"Sorry for asking you to come even though this really doesn't have much to do with you," Hans continued. She shrugged it off.

"Don't worry about it. It's totally cool with me. I mean, you've always been so nice and helpful and awesome and wonderful it's only right for me to, you know, make sure you're alright when you run into trouble. Oh, of course I don't mean you are in _trouble_ now. I have no idea what happened, but can't be the end of the world 'cause you're so smart nothing's gonna hurt you in the long run. Like, my mother said to me when I was a little kid that life's a road and when driving down, occasionally a moose would be cross'in and you'd have to slow down...wait, was it a moose or a reindeer? No, wait, why does that matter? God, am I rambling again? About my mother? Forget what I said, seriously...I'll just shut up now."

This was totally embarrassing. If she'd admit it, she was now feeling like a test-taker in the last minute of an exam, when the darned invigilator started counting down the seconds. Why the hell did they do it anyway? It made her want to rush through the last sentence and cram everything in before her pen was taken away, resulting in an onslaught of useless words and lack of necessary punctuation that only made her waste more time while contributing to the illegibility of her answer.

"Point taken. You're here willing to listen to me, that's all that matters," Hans said. It only made her more guilty to realize her right hand was clamped overtop her watch, forcing her eyes to remain on her friend's greens.

_No need to rush, no need to rush, nothing important is coming up, I can sit here all day..._

"Anna?"

The hell, was he saying something? She totally spaced out and didn't even know for how long!

"Yes?"

"So would you like to help?"

_With what? I was totally not listening!_

"Ugghh...yeah? Why not? I can be clumsy though so don't depend on me."

"That's great. I'm sure with your data, I can pass the retest."

"Umm...data? Like...my data?"

"As I was saying, my committee wasn't too happy about what I chose to blot, even when I told them it was the screen's top hit. They asked to see the other hits, and a model for how they would fit into a biochemical pathway."

Oh, the blot she did with Hans...of the hit from Elsa's screen!

But why did Hans include the blot in his committee meeting anyway? Well, she did help him with a lot of other experiments, but that one was just supposed to be him showing her how to do a Southern! Because it wasn't even his project but Elsa's!

_He's probably desperate...can't blame him. I did say I'd help._

"Err...well...I can talk to Elsa about it and see what she thinks. I mean, it's her project after all...but I swear, she's the nicest person out there even though she seems a little weird. I'm sure she'd be fine with it if I ask politely."

This time, the guilt slammed her like a truck. Ask politely for Elsa to share her data? It was all her hard work, the work she'd come in earlier and leave later than everybody else to perform! Kristoff's words rang in her head. Did Hans deserve it? Hans might not be a lazy worker himself, but didn't change the fact those achievements were rightly Elsa's. She had no right to even ask her grad student to fulfill such a selfish request.

And when Hans opened his mouth to say something, only to decide to close it as a second thought, she felt even worse.

She couldn't face him. All this stupid guise of helping him because she self-proclaimed as his girlfriend...she wasn't even really helping, she was just going along with whatever he said because she couldn't even be honest enough to admit her focus just wasn't on solving his problems now.

"Sorry, Hans. Actually I have something important to tend to, so I've got to run," she decided to stand up and leave. Hans hung a bitter yet knowing smile. From the very beginning, this guy seemed to see right through her.

"I'm the one sorry here for holding you up. I know I'm asking too much, but you're all I have."

All he had...all she had.

Maybe the Hans she crushed on wasn't the handsome face that drew her attention the first time she stepped into the Winters Lab, but the mirror she saw behind his electric lime gaze.

"I promised to help, so I would. Whatever you need of me," she said, wondering if she was too deliberate about her vague pledge. Maybe Hans caught it too, because before exiting, she turned to hear Hans speak once more with a waving hand.

"Don't worry about the data thing. I just wanted to...collaborate...so we'd have something to share together."

* * *

Contrary to common belief, Elsa was not a bad presenter.

When it was her turn, she stepped calmly up the podium, shirt creased, jacket smart, shoes tidy but didn't sparkle, giving her a clean yet down-to-earth look.

Unlike how she usually wore her braid, over a shoulder or down her back, it was fashioned in an arc above her, shining in its crisp white gold. The ice blues that cast over the audience silenced them, and after the host's introduction, she began.

It was to no surprise she felt a distinct shift of feelings radiating from the crowd. It began with cautious curiosity, something animal trainers would teach you to look for in the repertoire of behaviours healthy animals exhibited. They were like mice that scurried back into their homes when you slipped your finger through the cage, but after a little while, they'd poke their heads out and come check you out eventually. As her talk progressed though, that slight distrust, yet unwilling desire to understand her faded to genuine interest in what she had to say. The excitement echoing in her veins told her as much, comforting her because she knew she had successfully drawn attention off herself. This was what she loved most about science, its objectiveness, its cold, hard, impersonal nature. There was no need for others to know her. They just needed to know her hypothesis, results, and conclusion. That was it.

But as her speech moved from the novel and absolutely massive functional screens she performed on some of the most exotic environments on their planet, drawing tangents to a prehistoric Earth where life itself first emerged from the primordial soup, to her bold attempts at directed evolution of diverse prokaryotic serine proteases that miraculously yielded enzymes with restricted, yet highly efficient activities for substrates of the human complement system, her audience was completely invested in the story. But she found, much to her shock, she herself was drawing back.

Into her conclusion on how this research had direct implications on the pathogenesis of certain disease-causing cousin strains of the species she found, and a more far-fetched claim that this might shed light on the ancient origins of serine protease families, she stuttered, her mind flashing over the bottle of champagne in her memory.

Dr. Winter's pride, her faraway parents' hopes, all coalescing with a voice filled with admiration once sounding on the other side of her door.

_"...I missed you."_

Anna wasn't here, she realized, and she missed her. She couldn't even believe it, but this was the void collapsing all the carefully-stacked bricks in her perfect stone tower of professionalism.

This wasn't a movie. Even if she refused to end her presentation until the girl appeared through the doors, it wouldn't happen. Besides, she didn't even recognize Anna. For all she knew, the warm feeling was just inexistent, and though she never thought the cold would bother her, it did.

So she didn't look at the door. She turned down to her remote and clicked for the next slide, the last acknowledgements slide.

"Here, I'd like to thank our funding agencies, Genome Arendelle and the AIHR for their generous monetary support, my committee members Dr. Weselton and Dr. Corona for their suggestions and the samples they kindly donated, as well as all my colleagues from the Winters Lab, especially my supervisor Brad, and undergraduate helper Anna. Thank you."

There. She felt it. The happiness. The joy. The tearful cry to her recognition.

Anna.

Amongst the clapping crowd, her widened eyes swept to a latecomer standing near a pillar, the only spot she could find in the completely-filled hall. That was the first time they met, blues with teals, then she surveyed the rich braids of strawberry-blonde, tanned face adorned with adorable freckles, and that smile, that smile that just seemed to overtake her world.

The novel feeling making her heart pound was terrorizing her, but she couldn't let go of it. It was the first time she found a presentation so fulfilling that despite all fears, she wanted this to become stronger, to stay with her.

The rest of the questions session breezed by. She hardly remembered what it was about, what she even answered with, her senses, her mind, her everything completely devoted to something entirely different.

But with the final round of applause following and a content audience starting to file out the room, she came to her senses, just in time to avoid the girl who was starting to walk up to her.

_No, no, I'm not ready for this yet..._

"Sorry," she apologized to her fellow presenter who supplied the laptop, abruptly pulling her USB key out and darting for the back doors. Surprised by the sudden action, Anna nearly tripped over herself trying to turn back the other direction so she could intercept Elsa outside the hall. Damn it! She was almost sliding on flawless floorboards due to the puddles of water she was literally dripping all over them, having ran back from the coffee shop while it was pouring outside. Turning a sharp corner with an eardrum-ripping squeak, she managed to catch sight of the blonde, but still just short of reaching and grabbing her.

"Damn it, Elsa! How the hell can you be so athletic when you shut yourself in a dark room!?" She yelled after the quickly-fading figure, though she figured, she wasn't all that angry however.

Because she did see Elsa smiling.

By the time she made it back to the lab, the grad student was locked in once again. It was rather disappointing, but Anna swallowed it, plopping down against the door.

"You know I rushed back to see your presentation? In the rain? And I'm soaked as a result? You could've at least stayed and let me ask a question."

Chuckles sounded on the other end, and when they finally stopped, a very small voice started speaking, one she wouldn't have caught if she wasn't trying so intently to listen.

"What can you ask about when you only saw the acknowledgements slide?"

"Oh, I was gonna ask why you didn't put my name in bold comic sans font, each letter a different colour, because I'm so obviously special."

_You are special, Anna._

_Don't you know how hard I'm trying to ignore that? To ignore you?_

Elsa paused against the door, hand shaking while trying to touch the knob. In the end, she still pulled back and just dropped to the ground.

_I'm so scared._

_I'm so scared._

"I'm so scared..." she whispered, but it was already enough for Anna to hear it. She couldn't understand, for there was nothing to understand, but for some reason, she felt like she did.

"I know," Anna ended up answering. It was funny, because what did she know anyway? Right, just that one day Elsa would open that door, and when she did, it would be for her. "I trust you. You will come out, I will wait."

It was sad, because Elsa couldn't promise anything.

If things stayed this way, at least this was the extent of what would happen between the two of them. Sure, parting would be difficult when it came time for Anna to graduate, but it wasn't irreparable. It wouldn't hurt for too long, for either of them, because Anna was just seeing a mirage of her, an image the younger girl projected to fill the missing pieces of their interactions. Anna didn't know the real her, the ugly, selfish, cowardly her who left others wounded and refused to treat them because she couldn't even get herself to acknowledge the deed.

She didn't deserve kindness, but just like any other human being, she yearned for it.

"Elsa?" Anna spoke up again, "Do you want to make a rainbow?"

In that split second, it just snapped for her.

"No," she answered firmly, with possession and hunger. Instead, Elsa sought direct contact with Anna's hand, gripping it under the door.

**End of Chapter 5**


	6. Chapter 6

AN: Thanks YvonneChou, Luniverse, theBringerofWar, AsheWottlin, Time Variant, Kid Iccarus, Plucie, Nayal, el-sana, 23deecy, Peace Sign Freak, PhantomGemini, GuesT, Asha5267, and the other guests for their kind reviews. Of course, also thank you everyone for reading, following, favouriting. Your support means a lot to me, especially when I'm going through quite a bit of shit in real-life, which would hopefully die down by the end of the month so I can concentrate on writing this. About Hans' behaviour in the last chapter (and this one), it'll become fairly clear that he is not committing academic fraud. He is just being an ass, which people are completely capable of being, unfortunately. Alright, so let me begin venting! (Oh come on, you have tumblr for that...this is a fanfic, not an extended metaphor of your life...)

* * *

**Courtship of the Grad Student**

* * *

Chapter 6

"I just don't get you," Kristoff muttered between mouthfuls of sandwich, "Make that I don't get you two, but not getting the Snow Queen should already be obvious."

Anna ignored him while she continued munching on a chocolate-chip cookie. This just earned her a weird-out gaze from her friend who obviously disapproved of her choice for lunch.

"I'm not talking about the cookie if that's what you're thinking, Anna. I know you never eat anything but dessert."

"I ate pizza across the street with Hans before," she protested, but immediately regretted it, knowing she just left a huge, gaping opening for the blond to continue his inquiry.

"Speaking of which, why aren't you eating with him anymore?"

"He's busy preparing for his second shot at PhD transferral. He doesn't even eat lunch anymore."

"Really?"

"Really."

How much of this was truth, Anna honestly didn't know. She had been actively trying to avoid Hans the past few days while a certain burning question invaded her mind.

Good that she didn't tell Kristoff about this. Look how nosy he was about the other thing she let slip from her mouth.

"I think this does mean you can care less about what Hans is doing now. Great improvement, except your infatuation for grad students have hardly died."

"Gosh, Kristoff, what do you mean by infatuation?"

A pause while the burly blond tapped on his iphone, "Wikipedia says it's the state of being carried away by unreasoned passion or love."

"Seriously!? You're citing Wikipedia for this?"

"It's good enough for the structure of glycidol, so why not? The unreasoned part sounds accurate enough."

Anna groaned, "I'm not infatuated, and certainly not with grad students. What's good about them? The fact they never graduate, or their stipends put them under the poverty line?"

"I don't know, I'm not the one grinning all day after her grad student grabbed her hand."

At this, she shoved the last bite of cookie into her mouth just so she could cross her arms in defence of her dignity, "You know how hard is it to get Elsa to open up?"

Kristoff grinned, "Yeah, and you seem to_ love_ the process, as much as you _love_ chocolate."

She glared daggers at him, totally understanding his not-so-subtle implication. Okay, so she could understand his teasing about her earlier crush on Hans, but now that he shifted focuses, she found herself taking slight offense.

"I just want to communicate with her! I think I deserve that much."

The statement came out a bit more forceful than she herself expected, but Kristoff just smiled while he rounded the table on his way to trash an empty juice box, leaving a squeeze on her shoulder along the way, "Of course you deserve it, Silly. So what's making you hold the distance now? "

He left her to herself, knowing she probably needed it. Damn it, Kristoff, did he seriously think she wanted this?

But the incident a couple days ago when Elsa suddenly squeezed her hand under the door...it wasn't that simple. Kristoff couldn't understand! Sure, she was happy. No, she was elated! All because she finally connected with the Snow Queen. It was, however, the connection that made her wary of her previously careless actions.

"Argh..." Anna made a funny noise while she rubbed her redhead with sweaty palms, freeing up messy strands from her twin braids. First things first, Feisty Pants, there was that promise she made with Hans. She'd help him, no doubt about it, but she really didn't want Elsa involved. Still, the more hairs she pulled out her scalp trying to think of a solution, the more she realized her position as a clueless little undergrad helping a much more brilliant vice-boss. Cramming in three seminars between her weekly classes didn't exactly give her new ideas.

She sought out Gerda and Kai who she was inclined to call Mom and Dad by now. They were the parental figures of the lab considering Brad Winters was still away. But aside from an onslaught of technical terms like blast, blast, blast (which was NCBI's Basic Local Alignment Search Tool by the way, who would've figured?), she simply realized this ridiculously-huge endeavour was too big for her to complete by herself.

So after some more background research, she devised a plan and bugged Kristoff to help her with it.

"Why me? Why don't you just ask Elsa for help? It's her project."

She was left with an open mouth. Well, it was Elsa's library, which was not really her library so to speak, but the one she obtained from the Weselton Lab. The screen and the blot were Elsa's ideas, sure, which was why Anna tried to put those aside and use an entirely different approach to help Hans. It just didn't feel...right to go along with the original experimental outline, which Hans had no involvement in drafting.

"Well...umm...I'm trying to be sneaky and go the opposite direction, you know? Side project?"

"Don't tell me you're trying to do something miniscule and exaggerate its worth to fight for an authorship, because that is just nasty character," Kristoff gave her a look of disdain. She widened her eyes in shock, not because that was her purpose, but what he said reminded her of...

Before she could sort out her line of thought, Kristoff already snapped, "You aren't that kind of person. So that explains it, it's Hans. Tell me. What did he ask you to do?"

He was grabbing her by her shoulders and almost shaking the daylights out of her now. It was so hard explaining to the big oaf he was! "No, he just asked me for help on making a model, that's all! It will not have anything to do with Elsa's project. I don't want it to have anything to do with her because she doesn't deserve to have her hard work stolen by the likes of anybody, Hans or myself!"

He stopped, trying to calm down, "I get it, Anna. You're too nice. You want to help him, and being his undergrad, I'll work with you to accomplish that. But I swear to the Nobel Prize that I'm not kidding when I say you've got to be careful around this guy. I don't want him using you, or Elsa for that matter."

Was Hans using her? Maybe. Most likely, but this was no new revelation. She probably realized when he asked for data, when he took her blot without telling her, or even before that, when he went out with her for lunch and coffee just to talk about her project and see what he could get out of it.

But it made her feel needed. That was why she cherished her crush on him, even if it were almost fictional. He replaced the void she wanted filled, the fantasy to numb reality - she wasn't the goddess Kristoff made her seem to be, she was using Hans the same way he was using her!

What Kristoff made her realize, something that really bothered her, fed her guilt, was her own selfish actions had been dragging others into the mess - Kai, Gerda, Kristoff himself, all helping her while being kept in the dark about the truth of it all. And most of all Elsa, the secluded, scared Elsa behind a door she pried open only to leave a gap for Hans to sneak in and take what little she carefully guarded.

She wouldn't let it happen. She needed to stop being a coward and face the starkness of the world, even if she'd be hurt.

"I will talk to Hans," she said, "I won't let him use Elsa."

Kristoff stared into her steel-hard teals, seeing her small frame stiffen to match the determined display. It hurt him. Why was his tongue so useless it kept spouting out the wrong words for what he really meant?

"Look, Anna. You aren't to be blamed. You don't need to feel responsible for..."

"But I am!"

Silence. They glared at each other, neither backing away.

He finally turned to the side and sighed, "Okay. Fine. Whatever. We help Hans this one last time, get this model together, and that's it. You promise me, that's it with Hans. You go talk to him about yourself, how you ain't getting used by the likes of an ass like him, ever again. You got that?"

She just looked away.

* * *

Three long days. Three long days when Anna would lock herself in the library not studying for a midterm but figuring out Hans' problem, and the bastard didn't even know it! This was enough for him to do something totally out-of-character.

Kristoff did not pride himself for being an intuitive person. He could see the surface of individuals well enough, but lacked the interaction to delve deeper - this wasn't a fact he wanted to change in the near future, because though the brawny blond didn't want to admit it, people somewhat scared him.

Reindeer were so much better than people. Gave Sven a carrot and he was happy. People weren't so simple. All the granola bars he ever left the Snow Queen were returned without fail.

It had been quite a long while since he stopped by the dark room, but on this night, when he knew everyone except for her had gone home, he mustered the courage to knock on the locked door once again.

"Hey, it's been a while."

No answer.

"Sorry, I know I'm a nuisance, but there's really something I'd like to talk with you about."

The sound of a buzzing pipette gun stopped as though in acknowledgement of his presence; at least that was what he'd like to think. Honestly, he wasn't the type of guy to dig into others' business - it was a little, teeny, weeny bit lonely trekking the cold mountains of research by himself, but he was content enough to come across the trolls of knowledge along the way. Still, this time he had no choice.

"I want to talk with you about Anna."

There was a deadly silence hanging in the air, almost as though neither of them breathed. The biosafety cabinet roared on. That was about it.

That was when he inhaled deeply and forgot about where to start, just focused on blurting it all out with not a single missing word.

"I know it's not my position to say this, but she won't say it, so being her friend I just have to do it for her. The girl likes you, you know? I don't know how she can manage to see you through a door, but obviously you are doing something to connect with her. That's the connection you build, then you turn around and sever it, then you build it again...don't you think this on-off thing has got to end soon?"

Still no response. Even though he wasn't expecting one, he was getting more frustrated, "She doesn't deserve this shit! Can't you just choose one way or the other and leave her at peace?"

There was a pause, then a thud on glass, probably Elsa's fist making contact with the pane on the BSC. He sighed, "Sorry. I'm really sorry. I don't mean to take it all out on you. This wasn't why I came."

" Anna doesn't want you to know about this, so she's been hiding it from me until she accidentally let it slip a couple days ago: Hans is trying to use her to get his hands on your project. You have no idea how guilty she feels about it. She's trying to handle it all by herself but obviously she can't."

_Anna is always the one reaching out. She always thinks about whether she is needed by others. _

_Never does she ask herself what she needs and wants. She doesn't dare, damnit!_

"She needs you, Elsa."

There, he said it. He had no right to, but he said it. It was enough. He didn't deserve an answer, so he just left, knowing it wouldn't come.

* * *

It had been a week since Anna stopped by the dark room, since Elsa held her hand.

She still remembered how it felt, cold, shaking, but tightly gripping her own as though letting go would take her life. For a second, the barrier between them was no more. Raw emotions poured into her heart, Elsa's gargantuan fear, and the small beacon of hope she hid under layers and layers of protection - the hope someone would drag her out her kingdom of isolation.

Anna wanted to embrace the dim glow, to nurture it into a brightness rivalling the sun, but she was unsure, she had no confidence in handling something so fragile...

...especially when she couldn't even handle rejection well enough to put all her money on _Nature_ and would re-format a manuscript for _A Random Journal on Mangoes_, even when she was writing about bananas.

Stupid internal joke, she chided herself. It was over, though. It had to be over. She had come to a decision and would abide by it. Kristoff was right. That model would be the last. She was over Hans. She would move past and move on.

So it was with a bit of a smug smile to find herself propped in front of Elsa's door, holding the sheet of paper she found on her bench that morning.

"You say we have a high school student coming in to volunteer for ten hours? And you want me to handle her?" Anna puffed out her chest and deepened her voice in a ridiculous manner, "Oh, Anna, my trusted aide, may I bequeath this noble responsibility to thy hands, let thee give guidance to yonder young one completing his career prep graduation requirements?"

Elsa didn't know to laugh or cry. Obviously. Anna could hear muffled giggles behind the door.

_I so do not speak like that, Anna._

_And did you fail English Literature in high school? You're probably the one looking for some guidance on your language skills..._

"Anyways, I'll entertain her with tip-stacking and autoclaving trash. Don't worry, I'll manage to stop her from burning down the lab. But really, Elsa, how can you TA at this rate? Isn't it...like...a grad school requirement to TA at least once?"

_Don't worry about me._

If only Anna could see the Snow Queen's sneer when she shoved an enclosed envelope under the door.

"What's that? For me?" Anna asked. When met with no response, she assumed an affirmation and opened up the brown pocket for a paper stack within.

Report #1: The Diversity of Life on Earth  
Microbiology 450  
Anna Summers

"Holy crap, you are my online course TA!?"

She flipped the red smeared pages to the very back where an unholy grade awaited her alongside a rather threatening comment:

_You wasted ten minutes of my life trying to find Figure 12, which is inexistent. Can't say I appreciate it. _

_- Elsa_

It was with some excitement to read the comment. Elsa's handwriting, neat, small, but oddly powerful. And she signed it. And she felt so, so very familiar. Anna couldn't help reread it again and again and again.

_I must be a masochist._

"You didn't have to fail me for mislabelling a figure!" She decided to yell through the door. Elsa just sauntered back to her seat and grinned into the computer monitor.

_Anna, just do your homework properly and take care of the high school student._

_Leave Hans to me. I won't let him hurt you._

**End of Chapter 6**


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Thanks Peace Sign Freak, theBringerofWar, Plucie, elfspirit7, Don't know Don't care 38, Luniverse, Moral Attention, brunhe, GuesT, Kid Iccarus, Asha5267, Skairu, 23deecy, Supremacy of Chaos, el-sana, Nayal, YvonneChou, and the guests for their kind comments. And feel free to review or PM me if you find any errors that I need to change - I'd be more than happy to learn from you. And also, thanks for all the follows and favourites. You're all so nice!

Oh, and I added Rapunzel into this story, but she's younger than Anna here, not that I have been following the ages of the characters closely either way.

* * *

**Courtship of the Grad Student**

* * *

Chapter 7

Kristoff assigned Anna's new high school student a secret nickname, Princess Corona, seeing as Rapunzel was the daughter of Elsa's committee member and the lab's major collaborator, Dr. Corona.

But contrary to what they were all led to believe from Kai's tales about her childhood lab tours, Rapunzel was no damsel-in-distress knocking over bottles of dry-ice treated bubbling Kool-Aid meant to impress five-year-olds, she was rather capable as a tip stacker, beating Anna on her first try at filling the box of P1000s.

"I heard you tripped over your long blonde hair and fell face first into the recycle bin as a kid, what happened since then?" Anna couldn't help asking above the noise of Rapunzel smacking an ELISA plate onto the bench. Gosh, give her a frying pan and the girl could send a burglar flying to the middle of the Pacific.

"Oh, the hair? Cut it. Dyed it. You like this brown?"

"Well...uhh...I didn't mean the hair. I mean how did you get so damn good at doing this stuff."

Anna wouldn't admit she was jealous. She wasn't all that clumsy herself, capable of jumping up to a poster five feet off the floor, limbs spread out widely in an attempt to imitate the dendritic cell's morphology. She just had no talent in bike riding and mountain climbing and for whatever reason it was, lab work.

More than once Kristoff had to stop her from spilling chloroform all over her shoes while retrieving it from the flammables cabinet.

"I don't know. Comes naturally I guess?" Rapunzel replied to snap Anna out of her musings. _Damn it, Anna, not time to daydream about how you were outdone by a highschooler, time to think about how to abandon said higschooler to her own devices so you had time to finish up that model for Hans._

"Since it comes so naturally, I suppose I can just leave it to you, right? ELISAs aren't incredibly difficult, so I'm sure you can handle it."

"Oh?" Rapunzel turned around to flash a bright green gaze at her, "You got something super-important going on?"

"Well. No. Not super-important..." she trailed off, sort of annoyed the younger girl saw through her plan to leave so easily once again. Rapunzel snickered.

"Doing something for that handsome master's student? Heard all about it from Kristoff. He will finish it up while you stay here with me."

Gosh, this girl! How did she even get to know Kristoff after only working here two days? And now she was scheming with him?

"Oh, come on, you could..."

"Nuh uh, Ms. Supervisor. I still have plenty of questions to ask you, like why do you autoclave trash at 120 degrees Celsius? And why does the tape turn black afterwards?"

_And why do you even need to know that? _- Anna groaned. Damn Elsa. Damn Kristoff. Damn them all!

At least Rapunzel had to leave in two hours. High school students, still living with their mommies. She'd never understand the wonders of microwave dinners until she reached Anna's age. But Anna had got to confess Rapunzel left her absolutely drained after her little visit, so when the clock ticked six, she couldn't get herself to move anymore, let alone work on Hans' shit for him.

Absolutely perfect coordination between Kristoff and the new student, huh? If she wanted this problem solved, she had got to figure things out with her friend.

So when the blond made his way out the lab, she volunteered to walk him to the bus loop. He just stared at her like she were crazy, but nodded anyway.

"Thought you took the train?" he muttered, breath fogging up in the cold night of late autumn. Anna trudged her boots through the fallen maple and huffed.

"Isn't it your fault that I have to walk with you? Because you ganged up on me with Rapunzel?"

The girl's intentions dawned on him and he sneered, dark marbles narrowed, "Sheesh, Anna, can't you just leave that Hans business behind and mind your own business?"

"And you can't mind your own business? I asked you to help me finish the model, not to do all the work for me."

"Well, you're the one staying late every night working for the asshole who doesn't know or appreciate it."

"And how do you know he's an asshole? And he doesn't appreciate it?"

Kristoff just looked up to the dark skies in exasperation. Back to the old times when Anna first joined the lab. Was it his own lack of interpersonal skills that led to their arguments, or was it Anna's naive reluctance to admit the existence of any evil on planet Earth?

"Okay. Whatever, Anna. I'm done with the model anyway so no point talking about it. I was gonna shove it in his face tomorrow and that's it, but you just had to bring it up now."

"Oh?"

It took about three seconds before she remembered to close her mouth. The cold was starting to bite and she was glad Kristoff decided to take a short cut through the medical library, her body's desire to shiver waned to the warm air flooding her system instead. But there was something lacking in the air here that distinguished it from the breeze outside, that faint scent of undergrowth mingled with a tinge of fresh rain, the force of nature so powerful and fearsome yet simple and pristine. No artificial environment could ever hope to match it. Even in the imagination of an architect, such perfect design never existed.

Kristoff opened the back door and they were outside again.

Surrounded by trees on the path to the bus stop, under the dim glow of moon and stars overhead, she realized she had been composing an extended metaphor in her head.

"What's the matter?" Kristoff asked when he saw Anna standing still on the path. She turned to him, a weird dazed look on her face.

"You ever dated anyone?"

"Why?"

"Come on, just answer me."

He looked away. There went his image as the love expert, thrown out the window, "Err...no?"

She even laughed at him!

"What!?" he continued indignantly, "Have you? And don't say with Hans, because that doesn't count."

She paused for a bit, twirling her fingers, "Unless it's in a dream with a perfect Disney prince, nope."

"Disney..." he spat out the word, then laughed even louder than she did previously, "You serious? That's your fantasy date?"

"Shut up, Kristoff. There's nothing wrong with Disney. They make awesome musicals, and it's not just _The Lion King_."

He lowered the volume of his chuckles and patted Anna's back while they resumed walking, "Okay. Fine. Nothing wrong with being obsessed with childish sappy romance."

"As if you know anything about romance, Loner. Bet you haven't even had a crush on anybody before."

And his next pat on Anna's shoulders nearly sent her kissing the pavement, "Sorry. Didn't mean it."

He was flushing.

"Oh, you do have a crush on somebody?"

_Gosh, Anna, that's not the point!_

"No."

_Point is..._

"There's no meaning to having a crush on anybody. If you stand a chance, you confess. If you don't, you forget it. That's that," Kristoff ended.

He was just standing there at the top of the hill, so small in comparison to the skies in the background, but somehow still seemed to occupy her sight. Wow. Just wow. Everybody had their moments, but Kristoff's was ever so overwhelming.

"Hey," she called when she caught up to him.

"What?"

"You know why I asked you about the romance thing?"

He just looked at her in a manner that totally said, "No duh..."

"Because all my life I've been pretty much alone. Lovey dovey dreams keep me going."

It would obviously be rude if he asked what was wrong about her childhood, or if she had a major personality flaw here, as curious as he was about why Anna had been alone. He kept his mouth shut though, because he was pretty much the same.

"Yeah, I sorta get it. The lonely thing," he said instead.

"So when I saw Hans, it was like...for the first time in forever, I've got a chance! That kind of feeling."

"You deserve better than that jackass," he growled. She chuckled.

Was that true? Did she deserve better? She wondered.

"I don't know. I don't think I deserve anything, because I don't even know what true love is."

He had nothing to rebuke. Neither of them had even been in love before, let alone true love. What could he say to that?

She reached up and punched his shoulder playfully, "Hey, but I now know what true friendship is."

He grinned. If he must define true love, it'd be to give without wanting anything in return.

In that case, friendship was more than he could ask for.

"Sure, girl. You have me."

In that cold night, his company kept her warm, so they trudged on in silence till reaching the busy street bounding the campus where the loop was located.

"I guess you're right," she finally uttered before parting.

"Sorry? What?"

"About there being no meaning to crushes."

"Oh..."

He didn't quite know what she meant, but she didn't elaborate either, just blurting out the next out-of-context sentence that sent his mind whirling.

"Hey, that completed model, mind giving it to me? I need to talk with Hans anyway."

Kristoff realized he had no idea what Anna was ever up to. But so be it, whatever it was, he would be there supporting her.

So he nodded.

* * *

Hans usually wasn't the first one in, but he did arrive early enough to suffer his mornings in the lab. To survive, he had a routine going: put down his bag, set up his laptop, wash his hands with warm water and soap, then get the coffee brewing in the pantry before returning to check his email; this allowed him to function flawlessly despite having a hazy brain. He had a professional image to uphold. Just look at his hair, gelled everyday to the same perfection, sideburns always fantastic. His smile could probably go on a whitening toothpaste commercial. Sometimes, Kristoff had got to wonder whether it was a waste for Hans to work at a research lab considering he could probably find greater success as a real estate agent.

"Christopher, the LB," Hans said at ten, the beginning of a two-hours block he dedicated to his first experiment of the day. Kristoff rolled his eyes while he passed the medium.

"It's Kristoff. Your memory that bad?"

Hans only snorted while he swirled the medium around in its bottle, watching white streaks rise from the bottom with the movement to cloud up the yellow liquid, "Likewise, Bjorgman, you remember what I said about contaminated medium? _This_ is a perfect example."

He rolled his eyes again, "Sure, and whose fault would that be?" He passed the next bottle sitting on the bench anyway, and Hans took it over promptly, only to smirk once more.

"Well, well, this is a fresh bottle and it too is contaminated. I wonder who made the medium?"

"Look, no way it's me unless the autoclave is broken. Heck, the tape is still on and it's black, so not my problem."

After a moment of pondering, Hans sent Kristoff off to make fresh media while he opened up the contaminated bottles and wafted for a scent. Instead of the pungent _E. coli_ he was expecting, it smelled faintly of bread sweetness and the sting of beer.

_Saccharomyces_

But they weren't a yeast lab. It'd be rare for this kind of contamination to occur by chance, especially when it happened to both bottles. He then asked around the lab to see if others had the same problem, but it seemed that he was the only one.

Suspicion laced his mind. He had an idea who might've done this, especially when this person was the only who had made yeast libraries for screening.

So he pulled up the sketchy email he had deleted from his junk box earlier that day. It had no subject and no body and the address came from some random hotmail account composed of a nonsensical combination of letters and numbers. He grudgingly inspected the untitled attachment that was on it.

Screw it, if it killed his computer with a virus, he'd reformat. He always backed up anyway.

The file passed a Norton scan at any rate. It was just a pdf, and when he opened it, his suspicions were confirmed.

He was looking at a detailed report on a yeast screen, or rather, a series of screens. There was the activity data of transfected clones for several enzymes, then an array constructed from these clones for interaction screening, and confirmation studies on rescue phenotypes. It was just one experiment short of a paper - isolating the proposed consortium of microbes that supplied the original genes and trying to grow them. Obviously, it wasn't an easy task growing environmental strains, but if it worked out, it would've been quite a discovery, seeing as said consortium would be the first-ever of eukaryotic origins that could degrade the complex hydrocarbon substrate being investigated.

Needless to say, this was Elsa's side project, and she was giving it to him.

Coupled with the yeast she used to contaminate his LB, he could only conclude her message was, "Take what I give and stop screwing with Anna, or else!"

"Hahaha," Hans actually cackled, sending Anna wide-eyed when she approached him. How could he stop himself, even with the mask he usually wore to trick the world into thinking he was the most gentle of gentlemen? Oh Elsa, his acquaintance of many years, no wonder he was the one who knew her best! How would anyone else guess that hidden aggressiveness of hers? She might constantly be running away, but at heart she was a lioness, Queen of Fierce Nature, ready to pounce if anybody chased her and crossed that boundary into her secret territory. She had pent-up anger, ready to explode should someone light the fuse. Hans knew. He had seen so many like her. All his elder brothers and their talents, born to greatness so born with arrogance he could never rival. Did she seriously think this would get rid of him? Stupid! Foolish! Immature! Elsa Snow could understand each of the estimated ten to the twenty-ninth power individual microbes on this planet and she would never understand the one man in her own lab, him!

"Umm, Hans, are you busy at the moment?" Anna interrupted his thoughts with her meek voice. He smiled his kindest smile and rose from his seat so she could look into his electric greens. He saw her captured gaze reflecting his image, knowing her heart was likewise captured at this moment.

"I always have time for you, Anna." He summoned a low, smooth tone, one of confidence and reassurance, one inviting and caring.

"Well, I won't take too long. Here is a model for your committee. Hope it works."

He took over her folder and skimmed its contents. Truth be told, he didn't need the information; it wasn't even what his committee had problems with in the first place. He merely said it so he could use Anna to obtain Elsa's data, then if he contributed an analysis, he would've bought himself a place on Elsa's project. Some might view it as petty, but he could always use additional publications - mainly though, he merely detested Elsa and wanted to make her pay.

But this model didn't have any of Elsa's data.

"You made this yourself?"

Anna nodded, rubbing her left thumb in nervousness, "Yeah. With Kristoff. Sorry if it isn't really good."

It wasn't really good, but that was not the issue.

She made it herself because she figured out Hans' intentions. She wanted to protect Elsa, but at the same time, she didn't want to hurt him.

"Why?" was all he could get himself to mutter.

"Didn't you need this? So I thought I'd help..."

"Why!?" he repeated louder, almost shouting.

He didn't need pity. He didn't need kindness. If he ever pulled someone down he'd step on him on his way up. That was how the world worked. He didn't need it to change.

"You knew already," he continued when Anna was silent, "that I was just using you."

She widened her eyes in surprise, but he could read that it wasn't surprise from his revelation, but surprise from his willingness to make it.

"You said we're alike right? I understand. You just want recognition. You just don't want to be alone.

I don't want to be alone either."

He felt like chuckling again. Gosh, how pure could Anna be? She was like a newborn baby, blank as a sheet, seeing only the world's good. No wonder Kristoff always acted like he was damn fed up with her. As a friend, how could the blond not worry?

A small part of Hans was wondering if he was starting to worry too.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" he managed to say softly, something burning in his chest. Damn it. He thought he was over it. Feeling anything about anybody. "You shouldn't think about anybody but yourself. We're all selfish. I don't expect you to be different."

She didn't say anything, but her look told him she disagreed. Even after this, she was still trusting him?

But really, why was he saying all this? Why did he have to react to her offering? Take it, run with it, steal more from her until she was broke. Why couldn't he just do something simple like that?

Anna knew the answer. He hated how she knew of that small bit of humanity still left in him.

He sighed and put his large hand on her fluffy redhead, "Whatever, Anna. I accept your kindness. Thank you."

This was probably the most genuine thing he had said in years. Sweet Anna. Kind Anna. She had a pull others didn't have. He could use her forever, but she made even the devil feel guilty.

They were so alike yet so different. Maybe she was there for him to look at what he could become if he tried hard enough.

Whether or not he could, or he wished to change his ways, he still didn't know. But for now, he did want to do a small little something for her. Inwardly he was chiding himself - small little something for your sworn enemy too, what the hell was that!? Still, it balanced out what Anna had given him, he decided. He might always be taking from others, but that was only because he felt entitled after what the world took away from him. Even he had a conscience to feed.

"Are we still friends?" he asked.

"Did we ever stop?"

They laughed together. Hans smiled, noting his own success, "Then I can't just take your model here. We should share it. You and me, and Kristoff too if you'd like. I'll polish this up and we should make a poster, submit an abstract and go to the International Creative Genomics Conference in the Isles down south. We'll have a blast, I assure you."

She stopped, as he predicted. There was her characteristic unease, rubbing her hands together like no tomorrow. Good. He was pushing in the right direction.

"I'll think about it," she said.

* * *

Night. When Hans made his way out the lab, he found Kristoff waiting at the door.

What was wrong with him today? Their only exchange were usually glares. What were those beers in the blond's hands for?

"Heard from Anna you want to do a poster with me too. Thought I should buy you a beer for that," he said. Hans just snorted.

"Lay it off, Bjorgman. You know Anna would say no."

"She's gonna talk to Elsa about it. That's what she told me."

He smiled. Just as planned. As for Elsa's side, he wondered what would her reaction be to the printout he slipped under her door.

"So? You gonna have the beer or not? 'Cause I can totally clean two," Kristoff continued. Hans snatched the can out of his hand and walked ahead.

"I take whatever's given. It's a policy."

* * *

Inside the dark room, Elsa stared at the write-up she sent anonymously to Hans earlier in the day, returned back to her in printed form. A post-it now adorned the first page, reading, "I haven't given up on Anna, not because I have a grudge on you from the time we were at the orphanage, but because she deserves better than someone who never lets her in."

She sat back on her chair until it creaked under pressure. Still, the tightness throughout her body wouldn't go away. She was tense. She was frustrated. How utterly humiliating was it to have Hans repeat the truth she pondered a thousand times without finding a way out?

"Elsa?" a voice interrupted. Anna's voice. "We need to talk. Please."

_No. Please no. I don't want to talk. I don't want to listen. I don't want to hurt you but why can't I get myself to stay away?_

Every step she walked towards the door, her inner alarm sounded danger. She was going to do something horribly wrong. There would be no way of going back. But a certain urgent possessiveness propelled her to move faster, closer, finally deleting the distance, leaving only the door between them. She placed her hand on the handle.

Stupid piece of wood, it never protected anyone anyway. Neither herself nor Anna - she had just been too weak to acknowledge this.

Her fear be damned, this must end today.

Putting strength into her fist, she turned the knob and opened the door.

**End of Chapter 7**


	8. Chapter 8

AN: Thanks Yuiiub, TheElementHero, GhostofWintersPast, GuesT, jonesey, Luniverse, WarThunder, PhantomGemini, Kid Iccarus, 23deecy, Supremacy of Chaos, brunhe, Nayal, ElsaStoleMyPen, rundownSabEr, Dark Devices, el-sana and the kind guests for their awesome comments, and everybody else for reading, following, favouriting. Thanks a bunch man! I really appreciate it. I've got to confess though, I have no idea what I'm doing, so hopefully this open-door chapter doesn't disappoint too much. As my PI has just so kindly informed me, my writing is shit, so I'd suggest you automatically fill in my "confusing descriptions" with the elsanna fluff in your heads. Of course, constructive comments are more than welcome. As long as you don't tell me I'm a horrible person with colourful profanities or bash this holy ship, anything else is good by me.

One last note: I'm so tempted to change the name of my blog to "Ramblings of a (Bitter and Apparently Illiterate) Grad Student". Gosh, I need lunch. Let's have cheese and corn, muahahaha

* * *

**Courtship of the Grad Student**

* * *

Chapter 8

"Why do I have to drink at your dorm? Really, Dude, I'd rather be home for the hockey game."

Kristoff's complaints went unheard when Hans just rolled his eyes, "Your suggestion was drinking in front of the lab building. Which is beside Campus Security. Christopher, you sure there is something inside that thick skull of yours?"

"Kristoff," he corrected, "Like you're one to say. You sure you don't have early-onset Alzheimer's?"

"I'm just paying tribute to your slaughter of the language by such horrendous misspelling of a common given name."

"It's not a misspelling you three-year-old bully with a bad hairdo!"

Hans laughed, plopping down on the couch with a six-pack, "Your insults speak for themselves. Lackluster. And here I am repaying a beer with six. This is poor entertainment on your part."

The grad student popped open his can with a single finger and downed it in swift gulps. Kristoff paused on his own mouthful, staring.

"Looks like you're gonna finish all six though."

"Yeah? Then better start catching up, Baby."

"You did not just call me a baby."

"I did. Blond baby."

Hans dodged a fist, flipping the remote in his hand to throw it in Kristoff's face, "Be good and watch your hockey game."

"Only if you'd stop throwing things, Toddler."

Hans shook his head amidst more laughter. Gosh, what had gotten into him to buddy up with this idiot?

"Hey," Kristoff spoke up after an icing call when they awaited the players on screen to skate back the other side of the rink, "You've got something for Elsa?"

Hans nearly spat, "Fuck, you mean the kinda thing you got for Anna? Hell no!"

"Wow, that's quite a reaction though if I were just mistaken," Kristoff passed the kleenex. Hans batted it away.

"Look, I don't know how you got the idea, but if you mean why I'm always targeting her, it's not because I want to show off my man pride or whatever ridiculous idea you have on your mind."

There was another silence and they didn't speak again until the next goal scored on their home team. After a collective, "damn", Kristoff asked, "You know her though?"

"Like before we joined the lab? Yeah."

"How?"

"Orphanage."

Kristoff wondered if he should say sorry, then again, he was also an orphan, just adopted as a kid by the Bjorgmans. Sometimes he even forgot the whole ordeal entirely.

"What was she like?" he asked instead. Hans snorted.

"I'm not gonna make the joke about_ you_ having a thing for her," he let his voice trail, then stiffened its tone, "But if you're asking for a reason for my actions, you won't get any. Place me where you want on your personal concrete alignment of good or bad, but if you're struggling to place her somewhere on that line too, do it based on your own understanding. I have nothing to offer."

Kristoff craned his neck up for a full view of the rough, off-white ceiling before slumping back down to watch the game. Whatever. Anna wasn't a kid. She knew what she was doing.

Let it go, right? Ha!

"Treat me to pizza, Boss. From Pascal's," he grumbled to Hans. Greens nearly rolled off the handsome face.

"State his theorem then I'd think about it."

* * *

Meanwhile, in the lab:

"Holy Rosalind Franklin Above, it actually opened!? Nearly ran my face flat!"

Such was her shock when the door opened for Anna who just stood there gawking, mouth hung open from whatever mumble jumble she just spouted till she noticed saliva would soon be dripping if she didn't shut it. An equally dazed Elsa finally snapped to the reality of what she was doing and hurriedly tried to slam the door shut again with a hushed, "Sorry".

"Oh, no, no, no, no, I didn't mean it that way!" Anna yelled just in time to slip her hand between the door and its frame, shoving it wide again, "Keep it open! Please! I can't get enough of your amazingly beautiful, pretty, dazzling, splendorous face...my God, I did not just pull that out of my embarrassing internal thesaurus..."

It was Elsa's turn to look flustered, her snow white skin all of a sudden flushed a mad red. Silence reigned while both of them just stared at each other, one wondering how blue could blue eyes get, another amazed that there was such a hue between blue and green making the most-prized aquamarines shy in comparison. Then both of them found exactly how cheesy their entirely irrelevant soliloquies were and started looking anywhere but at said pair of eyes facing them.

_Say something, you inadequate human being. Remember the last time you talked to another member of your species? Like your collaborator?_

Elsa resisted the urge to plummet her face into her palm upon this line of thought. Right, the collaborator she considered a weasel because he looked so much like one and even had a matching name. Last time she saw him she was gowned up in a bunny suit, mask and goggles and all, giddy from organic solvents that filled the class 1000 clean room as evenly as the nauseating yellow lighting. She even giggled at his corny joke about spinning wafers and UFOs, saying something along the lines of, "would be nice if the vacuum failed and it made an emergency landing on your head."

She decided to keep her jaws tightly clamped and instead redirected Anna's attention to Olaf the Printer where her conference abstract was freshly printed. Thank goodness Olaf didn't throw a fit about warm hugs, because she certainly wasn't in the mood to give one at the moment that wouldn't separate his head from his butt, whatever a printer's butt was, or head for that matter.

Anna followed the crisp crunch of paper being unceremoniously ripped out of the printer and continued staring at it till it got shoved onto her chest.

_Can I be more rude than that. And did I just grope my undergrad from behind a piece of paper?_

Elsa's flush turned purple. She quickly mumbled yet another apology before scurrying back into the safe confines of her dark room and plopping herself down by the biosafety cabinet in desperate hopes the groaning fan could somehow outcompete the profanities now running through her head to describe her own stupidity. Anna was torn between what she should be looking at now, the paper in her hand, or the slim figure of her grad student washed in a gentle white glow, because God forbid that gorgeous length of platinum blonde silk merging onto stereotypical lab attire was killing her.

And then Elsa chewed her lip. And then she pulled out a P1000 and jabbed it into a box of P2 tips. And then she smashed her head on the glass pane in frustration, smudging blue marker over her flawlessly curved forehead and started cursing herself. At about that time, Anna decided it was better to read black letters on boring wood products instead to save herself from cuteness overload.

"So? Oh, this is an abstract? For a conference? International Creative Genomics?" Anna asked when she recognized what was printed. The way she said it made it clear she had at least heard of the conference, if not considered it, making Elsa bite her lip again and fervently swish her CHO cells in its flask.

"You don't have to come," she managed to spew out the words, then mentally slapped herself for the poorly-worded statement, "I mean, with me. You can go with someone else if you want."

"That's not it!" Anna exclaimed, plopping down on the chair by the FACS machine and wheeling herself over, nearly colliding with Elsa's back. Gosh the floor was slippery. "I want to come with you! Heck, I didn't even know you would be willing to do it! I was just going to ask and now you already have an abstract and you say you want to come, it's fantastic! Wait, did you say I can come? I can come, right?"

In exhilaration, the Ginger grabbed hold of the older girl's shoulders and nearly yanked her off her seat. "Yes! Yes!" the grad student cried just so the undergrad would stop shaking her and leave her balanced precariously on the chair and not mopping the floor with her face instead. Wasn't she already being obvious enough? How excitable could Anna be?

"My God..." Anna spluttered one last time before going completely silent. Elsa really wanted to slam her head back onto the glass by now. She didn't know how to handle inducing an overjoyed stroke on her undergrad, seriously!

But this...hum in her body, this resonance from the feelings radiating off others that she alone could detect, the harmony of their shared happiness awoke all her childhood memories of smiles and cuddles, warm and gentle swirls of something flowing deep within her chest.

To think the useless person she was could bring back something so wonderful, it scared her, but it urged her to grasp onto and hold close this beauty she had brought into someone else's, and in turn her own life.

_Except this must be a dream! How can I deserve such a thing? I must be missing something. There must be a line in small letters on the back of the contract, an expiry date on the enzyme I bought, something that will take it all away!_

"You said you wanted to talk," Elsa finally mustered enough courage to say this, "About the conference?"

"Oh, yeah. Actually..." Anna poked her fingers together, "Hans wanted to go with me. Not alone! With Kristoff too."

_There, just as I thought. I should be happy enough that she even considered going with me...too. Who'd want to be alone with a socially-challenged nutcase? And what kind of crazy has infested this hollow head of mine to want to be alone with her anyway? For what? For leeching off her normal happiness because I'm so incapable of it myself? What do I know about happiness? I just know how to destroy it for everybody._

While her mind pointed out the logic she followed all her life, her traitorous heart blissfully ignored it and continued pounding on, in-beat with a sappy pop song. It was celebrating her good tactic at besting the enemy at his own game. Save it, Hans, even if Anna decided to come with you on the conference, you wouldn't have her all to yourself. Game's on, Bastard.

For the first time, Elsa wondered if she were schizophrenic, because she could totally picture her inner angel battling its counterpart demon at the bottom of her gut. It left her shaking so bad the pipette tip couldn't even jab into the microwell after three tries.

"Elsa?" Anna called, a little worried when she noticed Trypan Blue splattered over the metal bench, "You okay?"

That seemed to do it for the older girl who finally returned to the present. In exasperation, she just ejected the tip randomly at the corner and put down her micropipette.

_I'm supposed to be her direct supervisor. It doesn't matter who she'll be with when attending this conference. My job is to ensure she can go and make good use of the experience for her future career._

"Scoot over," she turned and said to the redhead who slowly nodded and wheeled herself aside, revealing the trash can. Elsa peeled her gloves off, tossed them, and reached over for the touchpad of the laptop, opening a file on her desktop. "You need a travel grant, "she continued while the file printed, "To get one, you need scientific contributions. If you can't churn out papers quick enough, it means you present posters, as many as you can."

Anna slipped out the room to grab the list, "No kidding, ten of them?"

"Undergraduate Research Day, Genetics Research Day, Microbiology and Immunology Departmental Retreat, Frederick Sanger Symposium, Arendelle Genomics Conference..."

"Okay, I get it. I'm not illiterate, believe it or not..." she groaned. This was crazy. It would mean a non-stop submission of abstracts, even though the chance of rejection for these local events was pretty low. Still, she wondered how many times she could reuse a poster till the organizers told her to lay it off.

"And that's what your high school student is for," another aside slipped from Elsa.

"What?"

"Rapunzel. Teaching experience. To sharpen up your CV."

"Oh?" Anna answered without really putting her mind into it, following Elsa with her eyes instead. The blonde had returned to work, this time with much better concentration as she could see the multichannel fly across the plate, filling it evenly without a single bubble in the wells. It was amazing technique, she realized, and boring as it was to most people, it completely entranced her.

The awkwardness was gone. When engrossed in what she loved, Elsa was stunningly beautiful. There was something attractive about people skilful in a particular task, even if the task were mundane as counting cells. Lifting her gaze from Elsa's hands, she looked into the icy eyes trained onto the task as though wanting to freeze it and dissect every micron section with cutting-edge histology. Then she stared at the delicate face that framed them, showing a determination ever so solid and unwavering. She noticed this was the first time she had surveyed her vice-boss so closely, so carefully - the first time she noticed the light blush barely concealing scarce freckles dusting the high cheeks, or hints of purple eyeshadow and dark mascara highlighting those deep sockets holding the clear blue orbs. Was it just her weird musings, or did Elsa actually long for someone to notice her presence? Or perhaps Elsa merely wanted to feel good about herself, but did so in such a subtle way because she felt an unexplainable guilt about this self-empowerment?

Anna didn't get it. But she certainly wanted to find the answer.

"And your grades," Elsa broke the trance, "You're lucky the grant application deadline is in two months. If you don't pull up your average by the end of the term, your chances are as good as spontaneous formation of diamond on the bench top."

"Well, if you buy me a diamond ring..." _What in the world did I just say? I did _not_ just flirt with her!?_

Anna couldn't convince herself. She dipped her blushing head to the ground. Damn Kristoff. All his fault for drawing parallels between the only two grad students in their lab.

"Umm...if I can afford a lottery ticket with my stipend?"

_Oh God, and did Elsa just flirt back!?_

Now there were two blushing heads dipped to the ground.

"Err...anyways, I got to go..." Anna muttered. She couldn't exactly trust her eyes when she saw Elsa stare back into the hood and absentmindedly pipette a ml of bleach into the opened epi on her rack. Sure enough, the blonde immediately swore under her breath and slammed her head on the glass again.

_Oh my...can she get any cuter?_

_And I did not just think that. Especially when she looks so much like a dejected puppy!_

"You gonna go or not?" _asked the dejected puppy._

_Can I just hug her?_

Without thinking too much about whether or not it was appropriate, Anna reached over and curled her arms around the slim shoulders, her sleeves sliding across matching coarse fabric with a crisp sound.

They froze.

"When I come back, please open the door for me?" was all Anna managed to whisper before pulling back, wanting to regret her behaviour but couldn't get her heart to do it. Rather, she was starting to regret not petting the perfectly slicked platinum bangs jutting out the back of an equally-perfect skull. They had been so soft against her chin - she could nuzzle her nose in them forever.

Only when said head nodded did she catch herself staring, not even for the first time tonight. In fact, she had probably been staring most of the time.

"Umm...yeah...very good," she responded awkwardly. No, she was not cooing a puppy. Where did that thought come from!? "I...ugh...just am gonna catch Kristoff at Hans' dorm. Got his text that they're drinking there, so...you know...I can tell them I'll be going to the conference with you instead."

The blonde swivelled sharply over so their eyes met. Those blues were opened wide, teeth showing between the gap in her cherry lips.

She was demanding an explanation.

"Well, you know, not like I have anything against Kristoff or Hans submitting the model. I really don't care if they don't even put my name on it. But for this conference, I just want to go with you."

The BSC fan mingled with computer static and the whispers of plastic serological pipette wrappers blowing under the airflow...

Anna escaped to the door, relishing in one last sight of the mysterious dark room now fully revealed to her, the microscope by the doorway, incubators and freezers cuddled to the dark corner, an ancient FACS towering by the edge of the table, cover opened to illuminate the room with a mystical laser glow.

And Elsa was the centerpiece, brighter than those lasers - she made Anna fluoresce in spectrums of the rainbow.

_No, that was totally corny._

"What I mean is," she wondered if she was answering herself or Elsa, but it didn't really matter, "your work is beautiful. I want to be there when you show it to the world."

The door clicked closed and Elsa fervently awaited the next time it'd open.

**End of Chapter 8**


	9. Chapter 9

AN: Thanks Peace Sign Freak, Midori Akiko, Lance58, Luniverse, Erzajane, PhantomGemini, GhostofWintersPast, brunhe, Kid Iccarus, rundownSabEr, GuesT, TheElementHero, Yuiiub, ElsaStoleMyPen, 23deecy, Supremacy of Chaos, SilverOsprey, and the various other guest reviewers for their kind comments. Once again, I'm a totally asocial geek with minimal understanding of human interactions, so feel free to tell me if I'm being overly corny or awkward with the characters. A little awkward is part of the theme, but if it's too much, I'll work to change that. And of course, other concrit or nice comments are welcome too, but do not bash the ship, please! With that...

* * *

**Courtship of the Grad Student**

* * *

Chapter 9

Kristoff and Hans had been unexpectedly chill about her decision to submit an abstract with Elsa for the International Creative Genomics Conference. Well, perhaps it was the alcohol.

"Forget it, I wouldn't have wanted to go with this jerk anyway," the burly blond slurred, slamming a hand on his knee when yet another goal scored on their home team. They were already losing five zip.

"And _you_ are just bad luck," Hans returned the jab. He passed a can to Anna, "Sit down and have a drink. Maybe we'd do better with you watching the game."

She couldn't turn down the sparkling smile so she sat down on the ancient but well-kept faux leather couch. She had not intended to stay much longer after her announcement, but the couch was nicely textured, cool to the touch yet warmed up nicely as she sat. A few minutes in and she found herself curled up against the armrest, feet shoving Kristoff's fat ass over towards Hans' side.

"What?" He grumbled accusingly.

"You're taking up all the space!"

"Can't you see there's this nasty little critter beside me?" He complained, pointing at his vice-boss. Anna sighed.

"This is not grade school. Now shove over, I can't see the puck!"

"Oh come on, we're losing this bad already and that idiot ref had to call a high-stick. What, you expect us to make a come-back shorthanded?"

"We must have faith!"

"I thought you were atheist..."

"Now why are you making an assumption about-"

"And they score!" Hans cut everybody off as he exclaimed with arms flung up against the back of the couch. Anna reached over and they smashed their hands together in a high five.

"Now _I_ am good luck," she exclaimed triumphantly at Kristoff who just rolled his eyes off his forehead.

"You've got to come watch the games more often," Hans offered. The blond glared at him.

"Bet you just want to pull her into another conspiracy of yours..."

* * *

So that was how Anna found herself at Hans' dorm every game night alongside Kristoff, sometimes in the company of Rapunzel too, like today because it was an away game in the East so it started early. She still had no luck with Elsa, or the two senior staff who weren't much fans of the sport.

"So you tried to get Elsa to come too? Seriously?" was Kristoff's first comment when the game started. Rapunzel just smacked him unnecessarily hard on the back.

"Anna's just adventurous, I like it!"

As adventurous as Rapunzel herself dating the guy who stole dish detergent from her dad's lab? It was a famous tale throughout the building of a man's amazing survival skills while working with a poor PI. Well, that wasn't the point, but it certainly was Kristoff's immediate thought.

"It's not called adventurous when Elsa can totally do this socializing thing."

Two pairs of sceptical eyes pierced her head. At least Hans was decent enough to stare at the TV screen instead.

"Okay, fine, maybe she can use a bit of work, but she's improving..."

"You mean your relationship with her. Not our relationship with her," Kristoff corrected.

"Look, how is that different?"

"It so is."

"Really?" Anna stared at Kristoff who didn't even shift from his seat, then turned around to look at Rapunzel instead who still had her big smile on while simply shrugging, "I think you just don't tell her good jokes. Breaks the ice quite literally in my case."

"Well, tell me about it, your good jokes..." Kristoff dead-panned. Rapunzel, on the other hand, seemed interested, more so than the game at any rate because she had clearly shifted her attention onto Anna's suddenly serious face.

"Last time, it was about diamonds, but that was corny."

"Well, if even you say it's corny..."

"Shush, Kristoff! That's why I'm telling you about another one! This one is great. Listen."

She moved her butt fully onto the centre of her seat, pulled at her shirt to lose the creases, and coughed.

"So we got the sequences back from the screen and found these mutations that are conferring more specific and efficient enzymatic activity against complement factor C5. We fed them through Rosetta to predict the structures and found these charged amino acids in the active sites..."

"Okay, let's cut the scientific mumble jumble and get to the point here. What's the joke?"

"She was explaining to me about how electrostatic interactions with the substrate might be keeping it in place during proteolytic cleavage. And I was like: 'so the positively-charged lysine dumped the partially negative water oxygen for the substrate? So much for molecular heterosexuality...'"

Kristoff smacked his head into his palms, "That was a bad joke, Anna."

"You should've been more obvious about wanting to form a stable covalent bond-"

Rapunzel was cut off by Anna's hand on her mouth when Hans suddenly turned over and blinked.

"What bonds are we talking about now?"

"Covalent-" Kristoff answered, but was smacked by Anna for it.

"He means government bonds," she replied with a smile before sharply turning to Kristoff, "Don't you dare elaborate, Neon. Go excite yourself!"

"Sorry. I don't get it," Rapunzel noted when her mouth was finally free to move. Hans nodded thoughtfully.

"Probably a reference to the noble gas. Doesn't form bonds, but fluoresces red when excited."

"Oh God, that was a good one," Rapunzel applauded with Hans. Kristoff shifted his gaze to the ceiling.

"I think you ought to google 'joke of the day' for reference instead."

* * *

With this particular suggestion in mind, Anna absentmindedly poked at her android phone while traversing the dimly-lit hallways of their lab early one morning. She had been coming in earlier and staying later lately in preparation for sending off the first of her local conference abstracts, this one for the Microbiology and Immunology Departmental Retreat that was scheduled to take place in two weeks, but admittedly, the 'jokes of the day' kept her up throughout the night in excitement, so she was extra-early today to tell it to her expected audience, with a nerdy twist of course.

It had already been like this for the past week, but every time Anna came across the dark room door, she still couldn't help smiling a little at the fact that it was no longer locked. Slipping her hand around the handle, she pulled it down and pushed open the door.

As usual, it was dimly lit inside, even when nothing was acquiring on the microscope, nor were there FACS samples waiting to be sorted on the flow cytometer. After a week of maintenance on the ancient Calibur from BD, the leak had been resolved and its cover pulled on once more to cover the lasers inside, leaving the room only lit by the fluorescent lighting of the BSC. Today, it was quite empty, the metal bench cleared of everything save the waste bottle and three boxes of tips. An unfilled biohazard bag hung from the green lab tape that attached it to the back, further indicating that Elsa had yet to start any actual work for the day. It seemed that she had dosed off on her seat while waiting for the fan to reach its operational state. Contrary to safety recommendations, she had removed her shoes and tugged her sock-covered feet beneath her while she leaned into the side of the mid back chair. She was now dipping precariously to the edge of it, about to slam her forehead on the BSC's glass pane should she slip any further.

Upon this realization, Anna tried to pull Elsa up as gently as she could so the older girl wouldn't jolt awake from the motion. She was half-successful, as Elsa's forehead stopped a centimetre away from the glass and she was plopped back to her original position at the centre of her seat, but somehow the asleep Elsa kept trying to lean on something, for comfort or something else Anna didn't know, leading to her sliding off the other side of the chair instead.

"This wouldn't do..." Anna muttered to herself. She pulled out another chair from the desk and sat down next to Elsa who eventually dropped onto her right shoulder.

She went rigid. Okay, so this was awkward. What would she do if Elsa continued to sleep on her? (Okay, that came out totally wrong.) Should she just stay until the blonde awoke or should she wake her up eventually? Judging by how Elsa's brows remained furrowed, jaws clenched, hands tightly clasped behind her raised knees, Anna decided she probably had a lot of stress to sleep off. So first, she slipped the extra lab coat off the back of her chair and laid it on top of both of them, then after another minute of staring at the features of the sleeping girl, she couldn't quite help bringing her thumb onto Elsa's eyebrow and smoothed it out under her touch.

Elsa made a slight hum under the movement, shifting more weight onto her when she brought her hands upwards and clung onto her sleeve like a cat. As much as it looked absolutely adorable, it was a little sad, seeing as she seemed to have done it with a strong sense of insecurity. It freed strands of white gold from her braid to fall onto Anna's strawberry blonde. As though to stave off her previous line of thought, the younger girl focused on the pale locks, brushed it with a finger, then proceeded to giggle as she wrapped it around her own.

"Beautiful," she whispered to her own handiwork, but before she had much time to admire it, Elsa suddenly thrashed her head to the other side and slammed into the BSC, towing Anna along their entwined hair. Luckily it wasn't tied very tightly, but Anna could still feel the pull on her neck signalling a minor whiplash.

"Wow, what just happened here!?" she exclaimed, pulling the now wide-awake Elsa back onto her chair. At least the collision wasn't strong enough to break the glass. It did leave a painful red mark on the blonde's forehead though.

"Anna? What are you doing here?" she asked, still rubbing where it hurt. Anna giggled.

"Wanted to tell you a joke I read last night. Well, a nerdy modified version. Then I found you asleep so I just waited. Didn't know you had such bad bed manners!"

Wait...she was pretty sure she worded it wrong.

"Or sleep manners?" she tried again, but Elsa's gawking expression still displayed nothing but confusion.

"Or...whatever they call it. I didn't know you'd be formula one racing in your sleep and crashing before you wake up to induce this...whiplash on me."

There was silence. At first, Anna thought Elsa was just trying to process her incoherent speech as usual, but that wasn't it...

_"I wish the rain would take me up the skies where I belong with the only ones to ever care."_

_- You don't need to leave. These paper airplanes can reach you from here, carrying with them the hope entrusted to me._

_She clutched the paper to her chest. No, this couldn't be real, it couldn't be real._

_"Hope is like the sun. It sets everyday only to leave me more afraid of the dark than if it never existed."_

_- But you know the sun will rise again. It has been promised to you. Dawn is near._

_She was trembling, but she managed to turn around to face the door she hadn't opened in months._

_"I know! I know I'll live to see another day! That's the problem!"_

_- How is it a problem when you're keeping me alive?_

_She wrenched the door open and ran down the dark, empty halls. The night was deep. Aside the sound of her footsteps, the pounding of her heart, nothing else could be heard._

_"I want to hold you together, but I can't. I can't even stop myself from falling apart."_

_- I once thought I didn't just understand others. I absorbed them. I am a product of all the pieces of others' hearts given to me. Then one by one they all left. Please, I beg you, don't break me further!_

_Plop, plop, her bare feet drummed on the wooden floorboards. Each tap was a dagger thrust deeper and deeper beneath her skin. The self-hate resonated, out of control. The walls were closing in, she was crying for help, but they wouldn't stop._

_"I want to live, my friend, but it's so hard you hide at a distance from what little of my feelings you can sense from there. Imagine what I have to go through. I can't hold it back anymore. I want to be free!"_

_She had no response for those were the words she had long wished to say herself. Soon, the last piece of paper arrived in her hands, the one she clutched now as she stood outside the room she should've visited long ago._

_The monster was in sight. It would swallow her._

_She stepped inside._

_"Please...save me."_

_The curtains were swaying from the side of the opened window. Moonlight streamed in to set the hundreds of white paper airplanes aglow. A single one stood out from the rest, stained the deep red of scarlet._

_No. Please._

_No!_

"That wasn't what was in my dream..." she whispered.

Anna noticed a wet trail down Elsa's cheek. Maybe the blonde didn't even notice it, because she was already forcing a smile. But it left Anna speechless.

"So what's the joke? The one you read last night?" Elsa dismissed the earlier topic. Anna had yet to recover, but she was trying - she knew she couldn't directly talk about what bothered Elsa so much now.

Not now.

But one day...

"Oh! Yes...well...ugh...I need props, so wait a minute."

Anna stepped out a little to fetch the squirt bottle she needed. She set it on the table, grinning at the unexpected appropriateness of her pre-planned stunt. She softened her expression and made two fake coughs before she continued the lines she had previously recited, "So," she pointed to the bottle, "methanol, here, was happily walking down the street when a bad guy came up and kidnapped the hydroxyl group."

She ripped the OH off the label and moved on, "The remaining methano group was really upset and didn't know what to do until uranium and nitrogen decided to come along and pat him on the shoulder..."

She wrote U and N on another piece of tape and stuck it just before the remaining Me, "See? He didn't have to worry, because..."

"There's still U N Me?" Elsa read, then finally dissolved into gentle chuckles, "That's lame, Anna. Did you modify that from a cheesy pickup line?"

"Maybe I did?" she said, scratching the back of her head. On second thought, it was lame. Wait, did she just admit..."Well, no, I didn't mean that, but you know...like...I just wanted to say I'd be here, if you want someone not just free labour, but like...a friend maybe."

"A friend?"

Was Elsa shocked? Was this too personal? Anna already withheld the urge to brush away the tear, but was this too much too?

She didn't know. It was ironic, because all her life she wanted to be around people, but when finally given the opportunity she didn't know what was appropriate.

Then Elsa's seriousness cracked into deep laughter.

"Of course, Anna. I'd love to. Be friends, I mean."

Really? Really?

Her lips curved upwards unconsciously. She was probably showing teeth and gums but she could hardly care.

It was different than with Kristoff or any of the others, but she couldn't quite figure out what was it. Maybe people-people connections were like onions, they were layered, and some just managed to connect in more levels in a very mysterious way she couldn't understand. And the discovery was best described as..._heartwarming_?

Whatever it was, they both knew it and they sat there grinning about it for a long time.

**End of Chapter 9**


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Thanks FrozenFanatic, theBringerofWar, 23deecy, Lance58, veroniqeu, Luniverse, SonderAndLife, GhostofWintersPast, brunhe, TheElementHero, PhantomGemini, Nayal, rundownSabEr, Supremacy of Chaos, Yuiiub, Kid Iccarus, GuesT, and the other guests for their kind comments! As we've finally reached chapter ten, I'm planning on a revision/rewrite of the earlier chapters, probably taking out some of the awkward parts and filling in on things that were confusing, etc. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them behind, and if anybody has the extra time to beta the edited chapters, that'd make me super-duper happy as well. Alright, so as always...

* * *

**Courtship of the Grad Student**

* * *

Chapter 10

Friendship was a foreign concept to Anna until she met Kristoff and the gang, but now that she had initiated a friendship with Elsa, she recontemplated the meaning of that word.

Being friends with Kristoff and the others was easy. They had their hockey nights at Hans' dorm, the occasional lunch and movie on the weekends, and sometimes a hike up the mountains to make good use of the remaining autumn. Sure, they had their awkward moments, like all the times she kicked Kristoff off the couch, or when Rapunzel threatened to tie them all up with her hair, only to realize she had long cut it short, but none of them as uncomfortable as this.

It was another day spent in the Winters Lab dark room, another day Anna found herself staring at the small, or as she liked to call it, "flimsy" back of her blonde grad student. Or maybe this thick silence was the opposite of uncomfortable - she admitted she quite enjoyed it, just watching how this seemingly frail figure could conduct herself so gracefully while flying a multichannel across a 1536-well plate as though the puny wells didn't blind her eyes (Anna could hardly handle the 384s herself). But perhaps it was the reason, or the lack thereof, for why she liked this that discomforted her.

The sudden swivel of Elsa's chair alerted Anna to get back to her work. She tried her best to look professional, snapping straight up only to hit the microscope's oculars with her nose.

"Ow!" she couldn't hold back a cry. Elsa quirked an eyebrow in amusement.

"You don't need to bother pretending. I can tell you are procrastinating either way."

"I so was not procrastinating!"

"Oh yeah? Let me see."

The older girl wheeled over on her chair and dipped the oculars to her level as she continued, "Took you ten minutes and this thing is still so out of focus?"

"I..." _All your fault that I was looking at you all this time! _"I wanted to make sure I wouldn't slam the objectives onto the slide!"

"There's enough distance between the lens and your sample to fit your entire hand! Maybe that's the problem, huh?"

Anna groaned, "The sample was misbehaving...it deserved the cold shoulder."

Elsa rolled her eyes before returning to the oculars. A couple swift turns of the coarse focus, and another couple on the fine brought the objectives up to the proper position, "And you're the one misbehaving. That sample is so obviously over-stained. Did you do a proper wash?"

"I gently stroked the yeast babies with my finger and rubbed it with Dawn, you know, like how they save ducks from oil spills..."

Elsa caught Anna's sarcasm and playfully shoved her in the shoulder. She giggled, proceeding to shove back with such force the blonde nearly fell off her chair.

"Somebody needs to build up a bit of body mass..." Anna chided. Elsa just shook her head.

"Well, somebody needs to be less violent."

"Fine. I concede. We should balance out our traits by horizontal gene transfer through conjugation."

_Wait a second...I did not just say that._

_Don't they call this...bacterial sex!?_

She wanted to plummet her forehead into her hands, but those darned gloves were in the way. Not that such a gesture would help at all, she thought to herself. Why the hell did those inappropriate jokes flood her mind whenever she was with Elsa? Perhaps it was how her reaction was so damned cute...

...like that! Just look at the way Elsa instinctively wanted to do another eye roll, but paused midway upon realizing the implications (she was a bit slow, but slow in an absolutely endearing manner) and flushed three shades darker than her usual snow white complexion!

Oh God. Anna knew she had a strange taste when it came to what was cute. Heck, she thought budding yeasts were next to the cutest things on Earth, well...when they budded at any rate. But she swore most people would probably agree that Elsa was the epitome of cuteness any way you looked at her - she was nearly dying from an overdose of her adorableness!

"Err...since your mind is obviously preoccupied with other matters...you can probably go. You know...it'll take you forever to finish this poster and we'd never make it to the retreat if you were working on it alone, so I can just stay and finish up and submit it for printing before it's too late..." Elsa ranted, not even looking at her. She was already spinning down the yeast for a wash, set on taking more pictures on the microscope all by herself.

"Hell no! My poster! My work! You go finish your screen and I'll handle the colourful fluorescence imaging figure," she complained, hovering over the microfuge so she could snatch back the tube after it was done spinning. Elsa just sighed and returned to the BSC, leaving the silence hanging once more.

In the end, Anna did prepare a satisfactory sample, but Elsa still had to help with taking the actual photo. Maybe she was just inexperienced, or she had less of an artistic sense as the blonde, but she soon realized making a good scientific poster actually involved a lot of aesthetics in the figures and schematics as well as the layout of everything. It took about thirty tries and near photobleaching of her fluorophores before they managed to capture the crystal clear accumulation of their target protein on the bud necks. But wow, was it worth it. Beautiful things were just so beautiful she could look at it all day.

"I'm going to send it off if you're happy with it..." Elsa deadpanned. Anna grinned. Not like she didn't notice Elsa too staring at the picture with a goofy smile the past three minutes.

"Don't send it off for me, send it off because _you're _so happy with it."

Elsa glared but did as she was told, all the while grumbling, "I'm just happy we made it in time for it to be printed. The retreat is the day after tomorrow."

Anna draped an arm over her shoulder with a little too much force that she sent Elsa's face a precarious inch from crashing into the glass panel, "I'm excited."

"Don't be. It's a retreat. Over a long weekend. Somewhere in the middle of a forest, forced into interactions with so-called fellow members of our species over lots of alcohol and not-so-fun-or-intelligent games..."

"I signed up for the pipette-tip shooting contest! And the egg drop!"

As though proving the point that she didn't need to know that, Elsa shut her eyes and lowered her head onto the glass. Anna laughed.

"I saw your name under the epi-rockets and squirt bottle fight."

"What!?" Elsa looked up, clearly surprised, "What in the world are those?"

Anna brought her gloveless finger over the touch-screen and lazily scrolled down the page on her ipad, reading, "Epi-rockets is a game in which you engineer a 1.5ml eppendorf tube to fly using various common materials as fuel. The one that can fly the farthest distance wins."

"Stupid..." Elsa muttered, then exhaled deeply, "But bearable."

"Squirt bottle fight is a capture the flag game in which you can shoot down the enemy using a squirt bottle filled with orange Kool-Aid kindly donated by the Dunbroch Lab."

Elsa took off her gloves just to cup her forehead, clearly not looking forward to being shot by Kool-Aid. Anna patted her back, "Hey, at least you aren't in the Fixer-Upper contest. The explanation says it's a fashion show in which contestants are dressed in creative outfits made from lab recyclables. Hans and Kristoff are on it!"

If she heard right, Elsa snorted, "I'll look forward to that."

"Hell yes! I'm looking forward to all of those! But anyways...I'd better get going, else I'd miss the last train home."

Anna busily packed her ipad away, and only when she was zipping up her bag did she notice Elsa staring at her, hands held tightly together on her lap. When their eyes met, the cold blues averted themselves slightly so they stared straight at the door behind her. Anna kept training her eyes on the blonde till the older girl finally shifted a little and attempted to speak, mouth opening and closing several times as she tried.

"You look like a goldfish, Elsa..."

"I...I do not!" Elsa complained in such a hurried manner she nearly bit her tongue. It only made her blush even more, highlighting the faint freckles on her cheeks.

"Don't worry. I think it's cute," Anna kept teasing.

The widened ice orbs took in the gleaming teals for a second before she found it increasingly difficult to hold a gaze and stared down at the linoleum floor.

"I am twenty-four and you do not call twenty-four-year-olds cute."

"Yes, we do. Why not?"

"It's...I don't know...not proper!"

"Yes, Mother..." Anna muttered, picking up her bag to leave with a grin still hanging on her face.

Elsa followed her though, and just before she was out the door, she called out, "Wait!"

"What is it, Mother?"

Normally, she would make an exaggerated sigh and cross her arms over her ample chest while shaking her head, but she was so embarrassed by Anna's attention now that she couldn't say what she had wanted to, "...you know...well...I mean, you should lay it off about the mother thing. I'm at best the age of your sister."

_What does that matter? I did not mean to say something stupid like that!_

"Fine, Sister. Good night, Good Sister."

"No! I mean..." _Just say the truth, Elsa! Why are you such a damn coward when it comes to expressing your sorry self!? _"I'm...ugh...it's my responsibility...no, I don't mean you are just a responsibility, but you know...I think...I'm concerned..."

"What?" Anna looked confused at her incomprehensible string of words, "Okay. Serious. I'm fine with whatever you'd want to say, Elsa, so please just say it. In my face. I won't mind."

Oh, Anna...now that she had devoted her full _serious_ attention on Elsa, the pressure was even more overwhelming. Elsa imagined herself standing at the top of a podium being crowned Queen in front of a large audience. She was so positively sure she'd screw up in some ridiculous way like freezing the sceptre and accidentally snapping it like a twig.

What an imagery, even when she deemed herself a realist by all measures.

But Anna was patient enough to wait for her internal struggle to die down. Finally, Elsa took a deep breath and blabbed, "It'd be dangerous for you to take the train at this hour I think you should just stay on campus I know you'd probably be fine on your own but why don't you just think of it as helping me get back to my dorm safely?"

If the joke was real and they were sisters in some parallel universe, then their nervous rambling must be hereditary.

"If I understood correctly...did you just..."

Elsa didn't wait for her to finish, taking her hand, throwing down her own lab coat before pulling both of them out the room and locking the door behind her. "You will not take the train this late at night...ever again."

Anna nodded rigidly, a little surprised, but interestingly almost elated at this protectiveness. Well, yes, they did have a superior/subordinate relationship at work, and their friendship shared a similar senior/junior dynamic that was at times even sisterly in nature, but this blatant concern Elsa was showing tonight...it warmed her up a little on the inside.

"So you're letting me stay at your dorm room tonight?"

The delayed reaction set in and Elsa was redder than never before, "Well...if...you'd like...or...I don't know...you can stay in the library instead, as long as you're safe."

Anna snorted, "It's not finals week. Who'd want to stay overnight in a library!? You have cable TV? I'd love to watch the rerun for tonight's game I missed."

Her steps felt so light as they descended the stairs leading out the building into the darkness that had set in. The full moon dangled as a centerpiece of the skies, shining a softer white compared to the fluorescent tubes they had in the lab. Under the wash of this natural glow, Elsa's skin and hair seemed to merge into one, ethereal marble tinted in majestic night blue. That usual coldness she emitted was all gone. For once, she looked so young and lively, the eyes that always mirrored ice shards reflected Anna's image like a warm, summer pond. It was at this moment that Anna realized her heart was skipping alongside her steps. What was this sensation? It was late autumn yet why did it seem like her body and mind were stuck in mid March, desperately yearning for spring instead?

"What's wrong, Anna?"

"I don't know..." she muttered absentmindedly before even registering what was said, "I mean, I don't know the way."

"It's the same building as Hans' place. That's where all the grad students' dorms are located."

"Oh? Really? Then..." this awkwardness was killing her, "I'll race you there!"

She darted away in escape, leaving a not-so-athletically-inclined grad student trailing after her. Served her right, Anna thought, this was payback for last time when Elsa ran off after her colloquium presentation. By the time they reached the dorm building, Elsa was bent over, trying to catch her breath while Anna hammered her hand on Elsa's "flimsy" back.

"You...are...killing me..." Elsa managed to cough out the words between gasps for oxygen. Anna withdrew.

"Whoops! Sorry. Bad habit I caught from Kristoff."

Elsa frowned, but it was impossible to tell if she was just being playful or if she was really upset. Well, either way, it seemed it might be impossible for her to make it up the stairs to the third floor unassisted.

"Here, give me that," Anna pulled off the bag slung over Elsa's shoulder and propped it on her own, "And your hand."

Too tired to complain, the blonde lazily lifted her right arm and Anna flung it around her neck and started half-hulling her vice boss up the stairs. Crescent Bay, home of the grad students, was one of the older residences on campus - a condominium-styled, salmon-coloured brick building complex overlooking the bay after which it was named. Compared to undergrad residences, where there were only a selection of crammed one-bedroom units or the horrid six-bedroom shared suites, Cresent Bay offered single-occupant furnished studios, such as Hans' place, or the more "luxurious" two-floored one-bedroom private suite, such as Elsa's. Once Anna managed to drag her up the third floor and made their way down the hall to the actual unit, she realized exactly what it meant to have good grades and win multiple scholarships. This place didn't charge over a thousand bucks a month for nothing. It was hugely more spacious than where Hans lived, that was for sure.

"No wonder you don't mind me staying the night. You have like...a living room! And a dining room!"

"All houses have that, Anna..."

"But this is a dorm! Dorms don't constitute houses!"

"And this isn't a house, obviously. It's a miniature mimic of one."

"Heck, I can't even afford one of those stuffy single bedrooms, let alone this!"

As they plopped down on the sleek black sofa and Anna proceeded to turn on the TV, Elsa looked at her with interest.

"Why not rent a room in the shared suites then, if you want to live on campus?"

"I wanted to...I didn't even need my parents to pay, I was gonna use my student loans, but they wouldn't let me."

"Why?"

"They're...well...overprotective," Anna didn't seem to want to elaborate, but eventually did continue when she loosened up while watching the game, "If they had it their way, I'd be living at home. But I'm from a small town so I had to move out for college, and college is...like...the proper thing to do after high school according to them. So I did, but they made sure I was really living alone. No bad roommates. No boyfriends. No nothing but study, because that's why I'm supposedly here. They'd rather pay for my rent than let me live with roommates - it's almost ridiculous. I feel bad though, so I moved out of a basement suite they chose for me in my first-year to my current refurnished garage. It's cheaper, so I can pay for it with the loans..."

She trailed off while her attention shifted fully to the game where their home team player stole the puck and single-handedly brought it across the opponents' blue line. Eased by the way Anna was paying her no heed, Elsa mumbled...

"...everybody has a hard story somewhere along the way, it seems..."

But Anna caught the remark and turned to Elsa, who looked away and pretended to watch the game even when she couldn't find the cursed puck. What was with this game in which big grown men chased a small black object with curved sticks, on skates!? She didn't get it. She just couldn't get it.

And Anna knew it. She knew Elsa was probably uncomfortable because of what she said. Damn it. Who was her to be complaining about her parents, who were a little annoying sometimes but did really love her, and were there for her all throughout her life. From what little she heard occasionally from Hans and Kristoff, she knew they were both orphans...and Elsa was as well. She must've been a bitch to bring this up!

But if she apologized now...wouldn't it hurt even more?

Silence. Awkward silence. Anna hoped against all odds that somebody, anybody, even the opponent would score at this moment to break the tension.

"And Morris brings the puck across the blue line, passes to Smith. Smith...back to Morris, Hastings shoots...and deflected wide..."

Anna sighed to the narration. Maybe she shouldn't rely on luck and actually try to come to know Elsa better by her own effort. She scratched her redhead messy, braids half-hanging there, half tossed out of the orderly plaits. "Um...Elsa? You ever played hockey..."

Turning, she noticed Elsa curled up against the armrest, eyes closed, dark lashes spanning delicate lines across the smooth skin. It was so tempting to run the back of her hand across those supple cheeks, but Anna managed to catch herself. _No, she isn't a baby cousin. She is your damned supervisor! Sure, we're friends, but you don't go stroke a friend's cheek when she's asleep. Gosh, what the hell were you thinking, Anna?_

She decided to focus on the fact that Elsa must be very uncomfortable with her neck bent at a weird angle to tuck her head between her arm and the sofa so as to avoid the lights shining in her face. To sleep without even eating dinner first...she must've been really tired. Anna nudged gently at her shoulders to wake her up, "Elsa...I know you're tired, but if you want to sleep, you should go back to your room..."

Elsa moaned groggily, but allowed herself to be pulled up by her arm. Anna once again hulled her up another flight of stairs to the bedroom upstairs. It was small, minimally furnished just like the rest of the dorm. Anna placed the blonde on the single-bed and tugged her beneath the white comforter.

Just when she was about to turn and go back downstairs to watch the game, she noticed the only source of colour in this room of grey tones. Snapple jars, empty of their previous contents, were stacked in a pyramid on the bedside table, vibrant from thousands and thousands of small origami objects that formed layers and layers of every shade of green, blue, and purple she had ever seen. Were they cranes? Anna cast a glance over to Elsa where she still lay sleeping deeply, then shifted back to the jars. Couldn't resist her overwhelming curiosity, she opened the top one and fished out a paper construction from within.

Only then did she notice the colour came from pencil crayons, drawing very intricate snowflake designs on one side of the paper. The other side was plain white save for short lines of writing in barely legible small print.

_- Are you flying in the skies? Is it cold up there? I hope it's warm; let the sun graze your wings_

She read from the origami piece, not a crane, but a very small paper airplane.

**End of Chapter 10**


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